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THE 


FRENCH  REVOLUTION 


OF     17  8  9 


AS  VIEWED  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  REPUBLICAN  INSTITUTIONS. 


JOHN    S.   C.    ABBOTT. 


itli  (^u  Mnnlnl  (!FiigrflDiBg0. 


NEW  YORK  : 
HARPER  &  BEOTHEES,  PUBLISHERS, 

FRANKLIN  SQUARE. 
18  5  9. 


^)3^' 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  one  thousand  eight  hundred 
and  fifty-nine,  by 

HARPER    &     BROTHER  S, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  Southern  District  of  New  York. 


PREFACE. 


For  some  years  the  author  of  this  work  has  been  collecting  materials  for 
writing  the  history  of  the  French  Eevolution.  With  this  object  in  view  he 
has  visited  Paris,  wishing  also  to  become  familiar  with  the  locahties  rendered 
immortal  by  the  varied  acts  of  this  drama — the  most  memorable  tragedy, 
perhaps,  which  has  as  yet  been  enacted  upon  the  theatre  of  time.  In  addi- 
tion to  the  aids  which  he  has  thus  derived  from  a  brief  sojourn  in  Paris,  he 
has  also  found  the  library  of  Bowdoin  College  peculiarly  rich  in  all  those 
works  of  religious  and  pohtical  philosophizings  which  preceded  and  ushered 
in  these  events,  and  in  the  narratives  of  those  contemporary  historians  who 
recorded  the  scenes  as  they  occurred,  or  which  they  themselves  witnessed. 
Governor  Bowdoin,  whose  library  was  the  nucleus  of  the  present  college  li- 
brary, seems  to  have  taken  a  special  interest  in  collecting  all  the  writings  of 
the  French  philosophers  and  all  the  works  of  contemporary  authors  bearing 
upon  the  French  Eevolution,  including — the  most  important  of  all — full  files 
of  the  Moniteur. 

The  writer  would  not  take  up  his  pen  merely  to  repeat  the  story  which 
has  so  often  and  so  graphically  been  told  before.  But  it  is  expecting  too 
much  of  human  nature  to  imagine  that  the  struggles  of  an  oppressed  people 
to  emancipate  themselves  from  feudal  despotism  can  be  impartially  narrated 
in  the  castles  of  nobles  or  in  the  courts  of  kings.  It  is  inevitable  that  the 
judgment  which  is  pronounced  upon  the  events  which  such  a  struggle  in- 
volves will  be  biased  by  the  political  principles  of  the  observer.  Precisely 
the  same  transaction  will  by  one  be  condemned  and  by  another  applauded. 
He  who  beheves  in  the  divine  right  of  kings  to  reign  and  in  the  divine  obli- 
gation of  the  people  unquestioning  to  obey,  must  condemn  a  people  who 
endeavor  to  break  the  shackles  of  despotic  power,  and  must  applaud  kings 
and  nobles  who,  with  all  the  energies  of  bomb-shells,  sabres,  and  iron  hoofs, 
endeavor  to  crush  the  spirit  of  democratic  freedom.  On  the  contrary,  he 
who  accepts  the  doctrine  that  sovereignty  resides  in  the  people  must  com- 
mend the  efforts  of  an  inthralled  nation  to  sever  the  chains  of  servitude,  and 
must  condemn  the  efforts  of  kings  and  nobles  to  rivet  those  chains  anew. 
Thus  precisely  the  same  facts  wiU  be  regarded  with  a  very  different  judg- 
ment according  as  the  historian  is  influenced  by  political  principles  in  favor 

692558 


Vi  •  PREFACE. 

of  equality  of  rights  or  of  aristocratic  privilege.  The  author  of  this  ^vork 
views  the  scenes  of  the  French  Kevolution  from  a  repubhcan  stand-point. 
His  sympathies  are  strongly  with  an  oppressed  people  struggling  for  pohti- 
cal  and  religious  liberty.     All  writers,  all  men  profess  to  love  hberty. 

"  Despots,"  says  Do  Tocqueville,  "  acknowledge  that  liberty  is  an  excel- 
lent thing.  But  they  want  it  all  for  themselves,  and  maintain  that  the  rest 
of  the  world  is  unworthy  of  it.  Thus  there  is  no  difference  of  opinion  in 
reference  to  liberty.     "We  differ  only  in  our  appreciation  of  men."* 

To  conmaence  the  history  of  the  French  Eevolution  with  the  opening  of 
the  States-General  in  1789  is  as  unphilosophical  as  to  commence  the  history 
of  the  American  Eevolution  with  the  battle  of  Lexington.  No  man  can 
comprehend  this  fearful  drama  who  does  not  contemplate  it  in  the  light  of 
those  ages  of  oppression  which  ushered  it  in.  It  is  in  the  horrible  despot- 
ism of  the  old  monarchy  of  France  that  one  is  to  see  the  efficient  cause  of 
the  subsequent  frantic  struggles  of  the  people. 

"The  Eevolution,"  says  De  Tocqueville,  "will  ever  remain  in  darkness 
to  those  who  do  not  look  beyond  it.  Without  a  clear  view  of  society  in  the 
olden  time,  of  its  laws,  its  faults,  its  prejudices,  its  sufferings,  its  greatness, 
it  is  impossible  to  understand  the  conduct  of  the  French  during  the  sixty 
years  which  have  followed  its  fall."t 

There  is  often  an  impression  that  the  Eevolution  was  a  sudden  outbreak 
of  blind  unthinking  passion — a  tempest  bursting  from  a  serene  sk}^ ;  or  like 
a  battle  in  the  night — masses  rushing  blindly  in  all  directions,  and  friends 
and  foes  in  confusion  and  phrensy  smiting  each  other.  But,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  Eevolution  was  of  slow  growth,  a  storm  which  had  been  for  cen- 
turies accumulating.  The  gathering  of  the  clouds,  the  gleam  of  its  embo- 
somed fires,  and  the  roar  of  its  approaching  thunders  arrested  the  attention 
of  the  observing  long  before  the  storm  in  all  its  fury  burst  upon  France. 
A  careful  historic  narrative  evolves  order  from  the  apparent  chaos,  and  ex- 
hibits, running  through  the  tumultuous  scene  of  terror  and  of  blood,  the 
operation  of  causes  almost  as  resistless  as  the  operation  of  physical  laws. 

The  writer  has  freely  expressed  his  judgment  of  the  transactions  which 
he  has  narrated.  "  The  impartiality  of  histoiy,"  says  Lamartine,  "  is  not 
that  of  a  mirror  which  merely  reflects  objects ;  it  should  be  that  of  a  judge 
who  sees,  listens,  and  decides.":}:  The  reader  wUl  not  be  surjirised  to  find 
that  some  occurrences  which  historians  caressed  in  regal  courts  and  baronial 
halls  have  denounced  as  insolent  and  vulgar  are  here  represented  as  heroic- 
and  noble. 

Evei^  generous  heart  will  respond  to  the  sentiment  uttered,  in  this  con- 

•  The  Old  RcRimc  and  the  Revolution,  by  Alexis  de  Tooriucville,  Introduction,  p.  xi. 

t  lb.,  p.  2r.3.  t   Lamartine,  History  of  the  Girondists,  i.,  10. 


PREFACE.  Vii 

nection,  by  TMers.  "  I  have  endeavored  to  stifle,"  lie  says,  "  within  my 
own  bosom  every  feeling  of  animosity.  I  alternately  figured  to  myself  that, 
born  in  a  cottage,  animated  with  a  just  ambition,  I  was  resolved  to  acqmre 
what  the  pride  of  the  liigber  classes  had  unjustly  refused  me ;  or  that,  bred 
in  palaces,  the  heir  to  ancient  privileges,  it  was  painful  to  me  to  renounce  a 
possession  which  I  regarded  as  a  legitimate  property.  Thenceforth  I  could 
no  longer  harbor  enmity  against  either  party.  I  pitied  the  combatants,  and 
I  indemnified  myself  by  admiring  generous  deeds  wherever  I  found  them."* 

One  simple  moral  this  whole  awful  tragedy  teaches.  It  is,  that  the  laws 
must  be  so  just  as  to  command  the  assent  of  every  enlightened  Christian 
mind,  and  the  masses  of  the  people  must  be  trained  to  such  intelligence  and 
virtue  as  to  be  able  to  appreciate  good  laws  and  to  have  the  disposition  to 
maintain  them.     Here  lies  the  only  hope  of  our  republic. 

The  illustrations  which  embellish  these  pages  are  from  the  artistic  pencil 
of  Mr.  C.  E.  Doepler,  who  went  to  Paris  that  he  might  with  more  historical 
accuracy  dehneate  both  costumes  and  localities.  To  the  kindness  of  Messrs. 
Goupil  &  Co.  we  are  indebted  for  the  privilege  of  copying  the  exquisite  en- 
graving of  Marie  Antoinette  at  the  Eevolutionary  tribunal,  which  forms  the 
Frontispiece. 

John  S.  C.  Abbott. 

Brunswick,  Maine,  Nov.,  1858. 

*  Thiers,  French  Revolution,  Introduction. 


CONTENTS, 


CHAPTER  I. 

ORIGIN  OF  THE  FRENCH  MONARCHY. 

Extent  of  France. — Character  of  its  early  Inhabitants. — Conquest  of  Gaul. — Barbarian  Invasion. 
— The  Franks. — Pharamond. — Clovis. — Introduction  of  Christianity. — Clotilda. — Merovin- 
gian Dynasty. — Fields  of  March. — Anecdote  of  Clovis. — The  Parish. — Strife  with  the  Nobles. 
— Moorish  Invasion. — Charles  Martel. — Pepin. — Fields  of  May. — Charlemagne. — His  Policy. 
— Feudal  System. — The  Church. — Rolls. — Louis  V. — Hugh  Capet. — Parliament  established 
by  Philip  the  Fair Page  17 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE  HOUSES  OP  VALOIS  AND  BOURBON. 

The  House  of  Valois. — Luxury  of  the  Court  and  the  Nobles. — Insurrection. — Jaques  Bonhomme. 
— Henry  III. — Henry  IV.,  of  Navarre. — Cardinal  Richelieu. — French  Academy. — Regency 
of  Anne  of  Austria. — Palaces  of  France. — The  Noble  and  the  Ennobled. — Persecution  of  the 
Protestants. — Edict  of  Nantes. — Its  Revocation. — Distress  of  the  Protestants. — Death  of  Louis 
XIV 25 

CHAPTER  III. 

THE    REGENCY    AND    LOUIS    XV. 

State  of  France. — The  Regency. — Financial  Embarrassment. — Crimes  of  the  Rulers. — Recoin- 
ing  the  Currency. — Renewed  Persecution  of  the  Protestants. — Bishop  Dubois. — Philosophy 
of  Voltaire. — Anecdote  of  Franklin. — The  King's  Favorites.— Mademoiselle  Poisson. — Her 
Ascendency. — Pai-c  aux  Cerfs. — Illustrative  Anecdote. — Letter  to  the  King. — Testimony  of 
Chesterfield. — Anecdote  of  La  Fayette. — Death  of  Pompadour. — Mademoiselle  Lange. — 
Power  of  Du  Barry. — Death  of  Louis  XV 34 

CHAPTER  IV. 

DESPOTISM    AND    ITS    FRUITS. 

Assumptions  of  the  Aristocracy.— Moliere. — Decay  of  the  Nobility. — Decline  of  the  Feudal  Sys- 
tem.— DiiFerence  between  France  and  the  United  States. — Mortification  of  Men  of  Letters. — 
Voltaire,  Montesquieu,  Rousseau. — Corruption  of  the  Church. — Diderot. — The  Encyclope- 
dists.— Testimony  of  De  Tocqueville. — Frederic  II.  of  Prussia. — Two  Classes  of  Opponents  of 
Christianity. — Enormity  of  Taxation. — Misery  of  the  People. — "Good  old  Times  of  the  Mon- 
archy!" 45 

CHAPTER   V. 

THE    BASTILLE. 

Absolute  Power  of  the  King. — Lettres  de  Cachet. — The  Bastille. — Cardinal  Balue. — Harancourt. 
— Charles  of  Armanac. — Constant  de  Renville. — Duke  of  Nemoiu's. — Dungeons  of  the  Bas- 
tille.— Oubliettes. — Dessault. — M.  Massat. — M.  Catalan. — Latude. — The  Student. — Apostro- 
phe of  Michelet 53 

CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  COURT  AND  THE  PARLIAMENT. 

Death  of  Louis  XV. — Edttcation  of  Louis  XVI. — Maurepas,  Prime  Minister. — Turgot;  Ms 
Expulsion  from  Office. — Necker. — Franklin. — Sympathy  with  the  Americans. — La  Fayette. — 
Views  of  the  Court. — Treaty  with  America.— Popularity  of  Voltaire. — Embarrassment  of 
Necker. — Compte  Rendu  au  Roi. — Necker  driven  into  Exile. — Enslavement  of  France. — New 
Extravagance. — Calonne 57 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE    ASSEMni.Y   OF   THE   NOTABLES. 

Measures  of  Briennc. — The  Bed  of  Justice. — Remonstrance  of  Parliament. — Parliament  Exiled. 

Submission  of  Parliament.— Duke  of  Orleans. — Treasonable  Plans  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans. 

Anxietv  of  tlio  Queen. — Tiic  Diamond  Necklace. — Monsieur,  the  Kind's  Brother. — Baga- 
telle.  Desperation  of  Briennc. — Edict  for  al)olishing  the  Parliaments. — Enerpj-  of  the  Court. 

Arrest  of  D'Espremeiiil  and  Goislard. — Tumults  in  Grenoble. — Terrific  IIaiI-storm..Page  G7 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

TOE   APPEAL   TO   THE   PEOPLE. 

Recall  of  Necker.— Reassembling  the  Notables.— Pamphlet  of  the  Abbe'  Sibyes.— Vote  of  the 
King's  Brother.— Ilis  supposed  Motive.— The  Basis  of  Representation.— Arrai^gements  for 
the  Meeting  of  the  States. — Statement  of  Grievances. — Mirabeau ;  his  Menace. — Sympathy 
of  the  Curates  with  the  People.— Remonstrance  of  the  Nobles.— First  Riot.— Meeting  of  the 
States-General. — New  Effort  of  the  privileged  Classes 77 

CHAPTER  IX. 

ASSEMBLING   OF   THE    ST.\TES-GESERAL. 

Opening  of  the  States-General.— Sermon  of  the  Bishop  of  Nanc}-.— Insult  to  the  Deputies  of  the 
People.— Aspect  of  Mirabeau.— Boldness  of  the  Third  Estate.- Journal  of  Mirabeau. —Com- 
mencement of  the  Conflict. — First  Apjicarance  of  Robespierre. — Decided  Stand  taken  by  the 
Commons. — Views  of  the  Curates. — Dismay  of  the  Nobles. — Excitement  in  Paris.— The  Na- 
tional Assembly. — The  Oath B5 

CHAPTER  X. 

THE    NATIONAL    ASSEMBLY. 

First  Acts  of  the  Assembly. — Confusion  of  the  Court. — Hall  of  the  Assembly  closed. — Adjourn- 
ment to  the  Tennis-court. — Cabinet  Councils. — Desjwtic  Measures. — The  Tennis-court  dosed. 
—Exultation  of  the  Court.— Union  with  the  Clergy.— Peril  of  the  Assembly.— The  Royal  Sit- 
ting.— Speech  of  the  King 92 

CHAPTER  XI. 

KEVOLUTIONARY    MEASURES. 

Speech  of  Mirabeau. — Approach  of  tlie  Soldiers  and  Peril  of  the  Assembly. — Elation  of  the 
Queen. — Triumph  of  Necker. — Embarrassment  of  the  Bishops  and  the  Nobles. — Letter  of  the 
King. — The  Bishops  and  Nobles  join  the  Assembly. — Des])eratc  Resolve  of  the  Nobles. — The 
Troops  sympathizing  with  the  People 09 

CHAPTER  XII. 

THE   TUMULT   IN   PARIS. 

Marshal  Broglic. — Gatherings  at  the  Palais  Royal. — Disaffection  of  the  Soldiers. — Imprisonment 
and  Rescue. — Fraternization. — Petition  to  the  Assembly. — Wishes  of  the  Patriots. — Move- 
ment of  tlie  Troops. — Si)eech  of  Mirabeau. — New  Menaces. — Declaration  of  Rights. — Dismis- 
sal of  Necker. — Commotion  in  Paris. — Camille  Desmoulins. — The  French  Guards  join  the 
People. — Terror  in  Paris. — Character  of  the  King 103 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

BTOUMINO    THE    BA.STILLE. 

The  Assembly  petitions  the  King. — Resolves  of  the  Assembly. — Narrative  of  M.  Dumont.— 
Scenes  in  Paris. — The  I'eoplc  organize  for  Self-defense. — The  new  Cockade. — The  Abbe  Le- 
febvre  d'Ormesson. — Trcacliery  of  tlie  Mayor,  Flesselles. — Character  of  De  Launey,  (Governor 
of  the  Bastille. — Sackitig  the  Invalides. — The  Bastille  Assailed. — Assassination  of  Do  Lau- 
ney and  of  Flesselles 112 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE    KINO    RECOONIZES    THE    NATIONAL    AS.'«EMni,Y. 

Rout  of  the  Cavalry  of  Lambese.— Tidings  of  the  Capture  of  the  Bastille  reach  Versailles.— 
Consternation  of  the  Court. — Midnight  Interview  between  the  Duku  of  Liancourt  and  the 


CONTENTS.  xi 

King. — New  Delegation  from  the  Assembly. — The  King  visits  the  Assembly. — The  King  es- 
corted back  to  his  Palace. — Fickleness  of  the  Monarch. — Deputation  sent  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville. — 
Address  of  La  Fayette. — La  Fayette  appointed  Commander  of  the  National  Guard.. .Page  122 

CHAPTER  XV. 

THE   KING   VISITS   PAEIS. 

Views  of  the  Patriots. — Pardon  of  the  French  Guards. — Religious  Ceremonies. — Recall  of 
Necker. — The  King  ^-isits  Paris. — Action  of  the  Clergy. — The  King  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville. — 
Return  of  the  King  to  Versailles. — Count  d'Artois,  the  Polignacs,  and  others  leave  France. — 
Insolence  of  the  Servants. — Sufferings  of  the  People. — Persecution  of  the  Corn-dealers. — 
Berthier  of  Toulon. — M.  Foulon. — Their  Assassination. —  Humane  Attempts  of  Necker. — 
Abolition  of  Feudal  Rights 127 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

FORMING   THE    CONSTITUTION. 

Arming  of  the  Peasants. — Destruction  of  Feudal  Charters. — Sermon  of  the  Abbe  Fauchet.— 
Three  Classes  in  the  Assembly. — Declaration  of  Rights. — The  Three  Assemblies. — The  Power 
of  the  Press. — Efforts  of  William  Pitt  to  sustain  the  Nobles. — Questions  on  the  Constitution. 
— Two  Chambers  in  one? — The  Veto. — Famine  in  the  City. — The  King's  Plate  melted. — The 
Tax  of  a  Quarter  of  each  one's  Income. — Statement  of  Jefferson 141 

CHAPTER  XVIL 

THE   ROTAL   FA3IILT   CARRIED   TO   PARIS. 

WaningPopularity  of  La  Fayette.— The  King  contemplates  Flight.— Letter  of  Admiral  d'Estaing. 
— The  Flanders  Regiment  called  to  Versailles. — Fete  in  the  Ball-room  at  Versailles. — Insur- 
rection of  the  Women ;  their  March  to  Versailles. — HoiTors  of  the  Night  of  October  5th. — The 
Royal  Family  conveyed  to  Paris 155 

CHAPTER  XVni. 

FRANCE     REGENERATED. 

Kind  Feelings  of  the  People. — Emigration  receives  a  new  Impulse. — The  National  Assembly 
ti-ansferred  to  Paris. — The  Constituent  Assembly. — Assassination  of  Francois. — Anxiety  of 
the  Patriots. — Gloomy  Winter. — Contrast  between  the  Bishops  and  the  laboring  Clergy. — 
Church  Funds  seized  by  the  Assembly. — The  Church  responsible  for  the  Degradation  of  the 
People.— New  Division  of  France.— The  Right  of  Suffrage.- The  Guillotine.— Rabaud  de 
St.Etienne 165 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

THE   KING   ACCEPTS   THE    CONSTITUTION. 

The  King  visits  the  Assemblj-.— His  Speech.— The  Priests  rouse  the  Populace.— The  King's 
Salary.— Petition  of  Talma.— Views  of  Napoleon.— Condemnation  and  Execution  of  the  Mar- 
quis of  Favrus. — Spirit  of  the  New  Constitution. — National  Jubilee. — The  Queen  sympathizes 
with  the  Popular  Movement. — Writings  of  Edmund  Bm-ke 175 

CHAPTER  XX. 

FLIGHT   OF   THE    KING. 

Riot  at  Nancy. — Prosecution  of  Mirabeau. — Issue  of  Assignats. — Mirabeau's  Interview  with  the 
Queen.— Four  political  Parties.— Bishops  refuse  to  take  the  Oafi  to  the  Constitution.— Char- 
acter of  the  Emigrants. — The  King's  Aunts  attempt  to  leave  France. — Debates  upon  Emigra- 
tion.— Embarrassment  of  the  Assembly. — Death  of  Mirabeau. — His  Funeral. — The  King  pre- 
vented from  vdsiting  St.  Cloud. — Duplicity  of  the  King. — Conference  of  the  Allies. — Their 
Plan  of  Invasion. — Measures  for  the  Escape  of  the  King. — The  Flight 188 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

ARREST   OP   THE   ROTAL   FUGITIVES. 

Arrival  at  Varennes. — The  Party  arrested. — Personal  Appearance  of  the  King. — The  Guards 
fraternize  with  the  People.— Indignation  of  the  Crowd.— The  Captives  compelled  to  return  to 
Paris.— Dismay  of  M.  de  Bouille'.— Excitement  in  Paris.— The  Mob  ransack  the  Tuileries.— 
Acts  of  the  Assembly. — Decisive  Action  of  LaFayette. — Proclamation  of  the  King. — The  Jac- 
obin Club. — Unanimity  of  France 200 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

RETTRN  OF  THE  ROYAL  FAMILY  FHOM  VARENNE8. 

Proclamation  of  Marat. — Three  Commissioners  sent  to  meet  the  King. — Address  to  the  Nation 
from  the  Assembly. — Tiie  slow  and  painful  Return. — Conversation  between  Barnave  and  the 

Queen. Brutality  of  Pction. — Sufferings  of  the  Royal  Family. — Reception  of  the  King  in 

Paris. Conduit  of  the  Queen. — Noble  Avowal  of  La  Fayette. — Statement  of  the  King. — 

Menace  of  Bouille Page  214 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 

COMMOTION     IN     PARIS. 

The  Remains  of  Voltaire  removed  to  the  Pantheon. — Decision  of  the  Assembly  on  the  Flight 
of  the  King. — Thomas  Paine. — Views  of  the  Constitutional  Monarchists. — Message  from  La 
Fayette  to  the  King  of  Austria. — The  Jacobins  summon  the  Populace  to  the  Field  of  Mars. — 
Mandate  of  the  Jacobins. — The  Crowd  on  the  Field  of  Mars  disjiersed  by  the  Military.— 
Completion  of  the  Constitution.— Remarkable  Conversation  of  Naiwleon. — The  King  formally 
accepts  the  Constitution. — Great,  but  transient,  Popularity  of  the  Royal  Family 222 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

THE  APPROACH  OF  WAR. 

Sentiments  of  the  King  and  Queen  upon  the  Constitution. — The  Legislative  Assembly. — Its  dem- 
ocratic Spirit. — The  King's  Speech. — Painful  Scene. — The  Queen  plans  Escape. — Riot  in  the 
Theatre. — Infatuation  of  the  Aristocrats. — Insult  to  the  Duke  of  Orleans. — Embarrassment 
of  the  Allies. — Replies  to  the  King  from  the  European  Powers. — The  Emigrants  at  Coblentz. 
— The  King's  Veto. — Letters  of  the  King  to  his  Brothers. — Their  Replies. — Cruel  Edicts. — 
Pe'tion  chosen  Mayor. — The  King  visits  the  Assembly. — Rise  of  the  Republican  Party....  23G 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

AGITATION   IN   PARIS,  AND   COMMENCEMENT   OF   nOSTILmES. 

Death  of  Leopold. — Assassination  of  Gustavus. — Interview  between  Dumouriez  and  the  Queen. 
— Discussion  in  the  Assembly. — The  Duke  of  Brunswick. — Inten-iew  of  Barnave  with  the 
Queen. — Interview  between  Dumouriez  and  the  King. — Dismissal  of  M.  Roland. — The  Palace 
invaded. — Fortitude  of  the  King. — Pe'tion,  the  Mayor. — Affecting  Interview  of  the  Royal  Fam- 
ily.— Remarks  of  Napoleon 246 

CHAPTER  XXVL 

THE    THRONE     ASSAILED. 

Angry  Inten-iew  between  the  King  and  the  Mayor. — Decisive  Action  of  La  Fayette. — Expecta- 
tions of  the  Queen. — Movement  of  the  Prussian  Army. — Efforts  of  the  Priests. — Secret  Com- 
mittee of  Royalists. — Terror  in  the  Palace. — The  Queen's  View  of  the  King's  Chai-acter. — 
Parties  in  France. — Energetic  Action  of  the  Assembly. — Speech  of  Vcrgniaud 262 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 

THE   THRONE    DEMOLISHED. 

The  Country  proclaimed  in  Danger. — Plan  of  La  Fayette  for  the  Safety  of  the  Royal  Family. — 
Measures  of  the  Court. — Celebration  of  the  Demolition  of  the  Bastille. — Movement  of  the  Allied 
Army. — Conflicting  Plans  of  the  People. — Letter  of  the  Girondists  to  the  King. — Manifesto  of 
the  Duke  of  Brunswick. — Unpopularity  of  La  Fayette. — 'The  Attack  ujRin  the  Tuileries,  Aug. 
10th. — The  Royal  Family  take  Refuge  in  the  As.sembly 271 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

,    THE    ROA'AL    FAMILY    IMPRISONED. 

Tumult  and  Dismay  in  the  Assembly. — Storming  the  Tuileries. — Aspect  of  the  Royal  Family. — 
The  Decree  of  SusiKjnsion. — Night  in  the  Cloister. — The  second  Day  in  the  Assembly.— The 
Royal  Family  I'risoners. — Third  Day  in  the  Assembly.— Tlic  Temple. — The  Royal  Family 
transferred  to  the  Temple 28(5 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 

THE    MASSACUK    OF    THE    ROYAL1.ST8. 

Saprcmacy  of  the  Jacobins. — Their  energetic  Measures. — The  As-serably  threatened. — Commis- 
sioners sent  to  the  Army. — Spirit  of  the  Co)irt  Party  in  England. — Speech  of  Edmund  Burke. 


CONTENTS.  xiii 

— Triumphant  March  of  the  Allies. — The  Nation  summoned  en  masse  to  resist  the  Foe. — Mur- 
der of  the  Princess  Lamballe. — Apology  of  the  Assassins. — Eobespierre  and  St.  Just. — Views 
of  Napoleon Page  295 

CHAPTER  XXX. 

THE    KING    LED    TO    TRIAL. 

Assassination  of  Eoyalists  at  Versailles. — Jacobin  Ascendancy. — The  National  Conbention. — 
Two  Parties,  the  Girondists  and  the  Jacobins. — Abolition  of  Royaltj-. — Madame  Roland. — 
Battle  of  Jemappes. — Mode  of  Life  in  the  Temple. — Insults  to  the  Royal  Family. — New  Acts 
of  Rigor. — Trial  of  the  King. — Separation  of  the  Royal  Family. — The  Indictment. — The  King 
begs  for  Bread 308 

CHAPTER  XXXr. 

EXECUTION   OF   LOUIS    XVI. 

Close  of  the  Examination. — The  King's  Counsel. — Heroism  of  Malesherbes. — Preparations  for 
Defense.— Gratitude  of  the  King.— The  Trial.— Protracted  Vote.— The  Result.— The  King 
solicits  the  Delay  of  Execution  for  three  Days. — Last  Interview  with  his  Family. — Preparation 
for  Death.— The  Execution 318 

CHAPTER  XXXII. 

THE     EEIGN    OP     TERROR. 

Charges  against  the  Girondists. — Danton. — The  French  Embassador  ordered  to  leave  England. 
— War  declared  against  England. — Na-\-y  of  England. — Internal  War. — Plot  to  assassinate 
the  Girondists. — Bold  Words  of  Vergniaud. — Insurrection  in  La  Vendee. — Conflict  bet«-een 
Dumouriez  and  the  Assembly. — Flight  of  Dumouriez. — The  Mob  aroused  and  the  Girondists 
arrested. — Charlotte  Corday. — France  rises  en  masse  to  repel  the  Allies. — The  treasonable 
Surrender  of  Toulon 331 

CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

EXECUTION   OF    5IARIE    ANTOINETTE    AND    MADASIE    ELIZABETH. 

Marie  Antoinette  in  the  Temple. — Conspiracies  for  the  Rescue  of  the  Royal  Family. — The  young 
Dauphin  torn  from  his  Mother. — Phrensy  of  the  Queen. — She  is  removed  to  the  Conciergerie. 
— Indignities  and  Woes. — The  Queen  led  to  Trial. — Letter  to  her  Sister. — The  Execution  of 
the  Queen. — Madame  Elizabeth  led  to  Trial  and  Execution. — Fate  of  the  Princess  and  the 
Dauphin 345 

CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

THE    JACOBESS    TKIUMPHANT. 

Views  of  the  Girondists. — Anecdote  of  Vergniaud. — The  Girondists  brought  to  Trial. — Suicide 
of  Valaze'. — Anguish  of  Desmoulins. — Fonfrede  and  Duces. — Last  Supper  of  the  Girondists. — 
Their  Execution. — The  Duke  of  Orleans  ;  his  Execution. — Activity  of  the  Guillotine. — Hu- 
mane Legislation. — Testimony  of  Desodoards. — Anacharsis  Cloots. — The  New  Era 353 

CHAPTER  XXXV. 

FALL    OF    THE    HEBEETISTS    AND    OF   THE    DAjnONISTS. 

Continued  Persecution  of  the  Girondists. — Robespierre  opposes  the  Atheists. — Danton,  Souber- 
bieUe,  and  Camille  Desmoulins. — The  Vieux  Cordelier. — Tlie  Hebertists  executed. — Danton 
assailed. — Inteiwiew  between  Danton  and  RobespieiTe. — Danton  warned  of  his  Peril. — Ca- 
mille Desmoulins  and  others  an-ested. — Lucile,  the  Wife  of  Desmoulins. — Letters. — Execution 
of  the  Dantonists. — Arrest  and  Execution  of  Lucile. — Toidon  recovered  by  Bonaparte 3C] 

CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

FALL     OF     ROBESPIERRE. 

Inexplicable  Character  of  Robespierre. — Ce'cile  Regnault. — Fete  in  honor  of  the  Supreme  Being. 
— Increase  of  Victims. — The  Triumvirate.  —  Suspicions  of  Robespierre. — Struggle  between 
Robespierre  and  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety. — Conspiracy  against  Robespierre. — Session 
of  the  27th  of  July. — Robespierre  and  his  Friends  arrested. — Efforts  to  save  Robespierre. — 
Peril  of  the  Convention. — Execution  of  Robespierre  and  his  Confederates 375 


Xiv  CONTENTS. 

CHArTER  XXXVII. 

THE   XnERMIDORLVNS    AND   THE   JACOBINS. 

The  Reign  of  Committees. — The  Jeunesse  iJorde. — The  Reaction. — Motion  against  Fouquier 
Tinville. — Apotheosis  of  Rousseau. — Battle  of  Flcurus. — Brutal  Order  of  the  Committee  of 
Public  Welfare. — Composition  of  the  two  Tarties. — Speech  of  Billaud  Varennes.— Speech  of 
Le'gendre.— The  Club-house  of  the  Jacobins  closed.— Victories  of  Pichegru.— Alliance  be- 
tween Holland  and  France. — Advance  of  Klcber. — Peace  with  Prussia. — Quiberon. — Riot  in 

Lyons Page  38^ 

CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 

DISSOLUTION   OF   THE   CONVENTION. 

Famine  in  Paris. — Strife  between  the  Jeunesse  Dor(5e  and  the  Jacobins. — Riots. — Scene  in  the 
Convention. — War  with  the  Allies. — A  new  Constitution.— Insurrection  of  the  Sections. — 
Energ)'  of  General  Bonaparte. — Discomfiture  of  the  Sections. — Narrative  of  the  Duchess  of 
Abrantes. — Clemency  of  the  Convention. — Its  final  Acts  and  Dissolution,  and  Establishment 
of  the  Directory 398 

CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

THE    DIRECTORY. 

Constitution  of  the  Directory. — ^Distracted  State  of  Public  Affairs. — ^New  Expedition  to  La  Ven- 
dee.— Death  of  the  Dauphin. — Release  of  the  Princess. — Pacification  of  La  Vendee. — Riot.<; 
in  London. — Execution  of  Charette. — Napoleon  takes  command  of  the  Army  of  Italy. — The 
first  Proclamation. — Triumphs  in  Italy. — Letter  of  General  Iloche. — Peace  with  Spain. — Es- 
tablishment of  the  CLspadane  Republic. — Negotiations  with  England. — Contemplated  Invasion 
of  Ireland. — Memorials  of  Wolfe  Tone. — Deplorable  State  of  Public  Affairs. — Description  of 
Napoleon. — Composition  of  the  Directory 411 

CHAPTER  XL. 

THE   OVERTHROW   OF   THE    DIRECTORY    AND  THE   ESTABLISHSIENT   OF   THE   CONSULATE. 

Proclamation  of  Napoleon. — March  into  Austria. — Letter  to  the  Archduke  Charles. — Prelimin- 
aries of  Peace. — Union  of  Parties  against  the  Directory. — Triumph  of  the  Directory. — Agency 
of  Napoleon. — Severe  Measures  of  the  Directory. — Indignation  of  Napoleon. — Dictatorship  of 
the  Director}'. — Dismay  of  the  Royalists. — Treaty  of  Campo  Formio. — Napoleon's  Address  to 
the  Cispadane  Republic. — Remarks  of  Napoleon. — Plan  for  the  Invasion  of  India. — Expedi- 
tion to  Egypt. — New  Coalition. — Rastadt 421 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


CHAPTEE  L 

ORIGIN   OF   THE   FRENCH   MONARCHY. 


Extent  of  France. — Character  of  its  early  Inhabitants. — Conquest  of  Gaul. — Barbarian  Invasion. 
— The  Franks. — Pharamond. — Clovis. — Introduction  of  Christianity. — Clotilda. — Meroviu- 
pian  Dynasty. — Fields  of  March. — Anecdote  of  Clovis. — The  Parisii. — Strife  with  the  Nobles. 
— Moorish  Invasion. — Charles  Martel. — Pepin. — Fields  of  May. — Charlemagne. — His  Policy. 
— Feudal  System. — The  Church. — Rolls. — Louis  V. — Hugh  Capet. — Parliament  established 
by  Philip  the  Fair. 

pOULD  one  have  occupied  some  stand-point  in  the  clouds  fifty  years  before 
^  the  birth  of  our  Savior,  and  have  looked  down  upon  that  portion  of  an- 
cient Gaul  which  has  since  been  called  France,  he  would  have  seen  an  im- 
mense undulating  plain  about  six  hundred  and  fifty  miles  square,  bounded 
on  the  north  by  the  Ehine,  on  the  east  by  the  craggy  cliffs  of  the  Alps,  on  the 
south  by  the  almost  impassable  barriers  of  the  Pyrenees,  and  on  the  west  by 
the  ocean.  This  beautiful  realm,  most  admirably  adapted  in  its  ph3'sical  fea- 
tures, its  climate,  and  its  soil  to  be  inhabited  by  man,  was  then  mostly  cov- 
ered with  forest.  Vast  rivers,  with  their  innumerable  branches  flowing  in 
every  direction,  beautified  the  landscape  and  rendered  the  soil  exuberantly 
fertile.  About  twenty  millions  of  people,  divided  into  more  than  a  hundred 
independent  tribes,  inhabited  this  fair  land.  Life  was  with  them  all  a  scene 
of  constant  battle.  They  ever  lived  with  weapons  of  war  in  their  hands, 
seeking  to  encroach  upon  the  rights  of  others  or  to  repel  those  who  were 
crowding  upon  them. 

In  this  state  of  affairs  imperial  Rome  cast  a  glance  over  the  Alps  upon 
Gaul,  and  resolved  upon  its  conquest  and  annexation  to  the  empire.  Julius 
Caesar,  at  the  head  of  forty  thousand  men,  descended  through  the  defiles  of  the 
mountains  and  entered  Gaul  between  the  Lake  of  Geneva  and  Moimt  Jura. 
After  a  series  of  campaigns  extending  through  ten  years,  and  afi;er  sweeping 
with  his  invincible  legions  nearly  two  millions  of  men  from  his  path,  he  suc- 
ceeded in  the  entire  subjugation  of  the  country.  Roman  governors  were  ap- 
pointed over  the  several  provinces,  and  fortresses  were  reared  and  garrisoned 
by  twelve  hundred  Roman  soldiers,  who  enforced  the  laws  of  the  empire.  The 
arts,  the  civilization,  and  the  refinements  of  Rome  were  gradually  extended 
over  the  semi-barbaric  Gauls,  and  for  nearly  four  hundred  years  the  country 
enjoyed  general  peace  and  prosperity.  The  southern  portion  of  the  province 
became  distinguished  for  its  schools,  its  commerce,  and  its  elegance. 

Toward  the  close  of  the  third  century  the  Roman  Empire,  enervated  by 
luxury  and  vice,  was  visibly  on  the  decline.  Then  commenced  that  mighty 
flood  of  invasion  from  the  north  which  finally  overran  the  whole  of  southern 

B 


18  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP,  I. 

Europe,  sweeping  before  it  almost  every  vestige  of  the  power  and  grandeur 
of  the  Ca?sars.  Army  after  army  of  skin-clad  warriors,  in  aspect  savage  as 
wolves  and  equally  merciless,  crossed  the  Rhine,  and  in  fierce  and  intermin- 
able battle  fought  their  way  over  the  plains  of  Gaul.  For  nearly  four  hund- 
red years  barbarian  hordes  from  the  shores  of  the  North  Sea,  from  the 
steppes  of  Tartary,  even  from  far-off  China,  were  pouring  down  upon  south- 
ern Europe.  Those  in  the  rear  crowded  forward  those  in  the  advance. 
These  clannish  tribes,  every  where  victorious,  were  slow  to  amalgamate. 
Each  retained  its  distinctive  laws,  language,  customs,  and  manners.  For 
more  than  two  centuries  this  cruel  war  continued,  and  all  Gaul  presented 
but  a  scene  of  tumult,  terror,  and  carnage. 

Among  the  marshes  of  the  Lower  Rhine  there  dwelt  a  fierce  tribe  called 
Franks,  or  Freemen.  Early  in  the  fifth  century,  Pharamond,  the  sovereign 
chief  of  this  tribe,  a  man  of  extraordinary  energy  and  sagacity,  formed  a 
confederacy  with  several  other  adjacent  tribes,  crossed  the  Rhine  at  various 
points,  and  after  a  series  of  terrific  conflicts,  which  were  protracted  through 
many  years,  overpowered  the  Gauls  under  their  Roman  leaders,  and  took 
possession  of  the  country  nearly  as  far  as  the  River  Somme.  Being  the 
leading  chief  of  the  confederated  tribes,  he  exerted  a  kind  of  supremacy  over 
the  rest,  which  may  perhaps  be  considered  as  the  first  dawning  of  the  French 
monarchy.  The  successors  of  Pharamond  retained  his  conquests,  and  grad- 
ually extended  their  dominions  until  they  were  in  possession  of  all  the  coun- 
try between  the  Rhine  and  the  Loire. 

In  the  year  480  Clovis  succeeded  to  the  chieftainship  of  the  confederation. 
Ambitious,  unscrupulous,  and  energetic,  he  pushed  his  invading  armies 
toward  the  Pyrenees,  and  for  thirty  years  nearly  all  the  south  of  France 
was  a  volcano  of  smoke  and  flame.  His  march,  though  attended  with  many 
reverses,  was  triumphant,  and  at  the  close  of  his  career  in  the  year  511 
nearly  all  Gaul  was  partially  subjected  to  his  sway. 

Christianity  had  previously  entered  Gaul  from  Rome.  Clovis  married 
Clotilda,  the  daughter  of  a  Christian  bishop.  In  the  heat  of  one  of  his  bat- 
tles, as  the  tide  of  victory  was  setting  against  him,  Clovis,  raising  his  hands 
and  eyes  to  heaven,  exclaimed, 

''  O  God  of  Clotilda !  if  thou  wilt  interpose  and  grant  mc  this  victory,  I  will 
renounce  idols  forever  and  become  a  Christian." 

He  gained  the  victory,  and  on  the  next  Christmas-day  Clovis  was  bap- 
tized. But  a  man  more  thoroughly  wicked  never  played  the  hypocrite. 
By  treachery  the  most  loathsome,  he  caused  all  the  chiefs  to  be  assassinated 
who  could  be  regarded  in  the  least  degree  as  his  rivals,  and,  placing  chiefs 
subject  to  his  will  at  the  head  of  all  the  different  tribes,  he  attained  such  a 
supremacy  as  has  led  historians  to  speak  of  Clovis  as  the  first  monarch  of 
the  conquered  realm.  The  dynasty  thus  established  has  been  called  the 
Merovingian,  from  Merovius,  the  grandfather  of  Clovis.  From  this  success- 
ful invasion  of  the  Franks  all  Gaul  received  the  name  of  France.  The  lead- 
ers of  these  victorious  bands  occasionally  had  general  assemblies,  held  in  the 
open  air,  to  deliberate  respecting  important  movements.  These  meetings 
were  very  large,  as  all  the  chiefs  and  sub-chiefs  came  in  battle  array,  sur- 
rounded by  an  ostentatious  and  well-armed  retinue.     As  these  assemblies 


480.]  ORIGIN  OF  THE  FRENCH  MONARCHY.  19 

were  usually  held  in  the  month  of  March  they  received  the  name  of  Fields 
of  March,  Ghamps  de  Mars.  The  interests  of  the  confederation  rendered  it 
not  unfrequently  necessary  that  these  assemblies  should  be  convened.  This 
was  the  origin  of  the  States  General  of  France,  which,  twelve  centuries  later, 
opened  the  drama  of  that  terrible  revolution,  which  is  universally  regarded 
as  the  most  awful  tragedy  of  time. 

An  incident  which  occurred  during  one  of  these  assemblies  held  by  Clovis 
interestingly  illustrates  the  character  of  that  barbaric  chief  and  the  state  of 
the  times.  A  silver  vase  was  included  in  the  plunder  taken  from  the  church 
of  Eheims  after  the  conquest  of  that  city.  The  plunder  was  divided  at  Sois- 
sons.  The  bishop  of  the  church  earnestly  solicited  that  the  vase  might  be 
restored  to  him.  Clovis  advocated  the  wishes  of  the  bishop.  One  of  the 
Frank  warriors,  jealous  of  his  chief's  interference,  with  one  blow  of  his 
battle-axe  crushed  the  vase,  sternly  declaring  that  Clovis  was  entitled  to  his 
share  of  the  plunder  and  to  no  more.  The  chieftain,  though  glowing  with 
rage,  ventured  not  to  utter  a  word. 

At  the  next  review  of  his  troops,  Clovis,  approaching  the  soldier,  took 
his  weapon  as  if  to  inspect  it.  Pronouncing  it  to  be  unfit  for  use,  he  threw 
it  disdainfully  upon  the  ground.  As  the  soldier  stooped  to  pick  it  up,  Clovis 
with  one  blow  of  his  battle-axe  crushed  his  skull,  exclaiming,  "  Thus  didst 
thou  strike  the  vase  at  Soissons."* 

The  monarchy,  thus  established  by  usurpation,  treachery,  and  blood,  was 
very  precarious  and  shadowy  in  its  power.  There  was  no  acknowledged 
metropohs,  no  centralization  of  authority,  no  common  laws.  The  whole 
country  was  occupied  by  the  various  tribes  of  invaders,  each,  under  its  own 
local  chiefs,  claiming  independence,  governed  by  its  own  customs,  and  hold- 
ing the  province  upon  which  it  chanced  to  have  taken  possession.  Thus  the 
supremacy  of  Clovis  was  neither  precisely  defined  nor  boldly  claimed. 

When  Ceesar,  five  hundred  years  before  the  rise  of  Clovis,  invaded  Gaul, 
he  found  a  tribe,  called  the  Parrisii,  dwelling  upon  the  banks  of  the  Seine, 
with  their  principal  village — which  consisted  of  a  few  barbarian  huts  of  mud, 
with  straw  roofs,  and  without  chimneys — upon  a  small  island  embraced  by 
the  river.  From  the  name  of  the  tribe  the  village  itself  was  subsequently 
called  Paris.  Such  was  the  origin  of  that  world-renowned  metropolis  which 
for  ages  has  been  the  focal  point  of  literature,  science,  art,  and  bloody 
revolutions.  During  the  sway  of  the  Eomans  the  city  had  increased  very 
considerably  in  population  and  importance,  and  Clovis  selected  it  as  his 
capital. 

For  about  three  hundred  years  the  successors  of  Clovis  maintained  their 
supremacy.  During  all  this  period  there  was  a  constant  conflict  between 
the  king  and  the  heads  of  the  other  tribes,  or  the  nobles  as  they  gradually 
began  to  be  called.  An  energetic  monarch  would  occasionally  arise  and 
grasp  extended  power.  But  he  would  perhaps  be  succeeded  by  a  feeble 
raler,  and  the  nobles  would  again  rally  and  make  vigorous  encroachments 
upon  the  royal  assumptions.  The  only  contest,  however,  was  between  the 
king  and  the  nobles.  The  mass  of  the  people  were  in  abject  servitude,  with 
no  recognized  rights. 

*  Greg.  Tur.,  book  ii.,  c.  28. 


20  THE  FRE^'C^  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  I. 

In  the  year  732  the  Moors,  who  had  crossed  the  sea  from  Africa  and  had 
overrun  Spain,  began  to  crowd  down  in  battle  array  through  the  defiles  of 
the  Pyrenees  upon  the  plains  of  France.  A  successful  general,  Charles 
Martel  (the  hammer),  so  called  from  the  tremendous  blows  he  dealt  the  ene- 
my, met  them  and  drove  them  back  with  prodigious  slaughter.  By  his 
achievements  he  acquired  immense  popularity  and  renown.  As  a  very 
feeble  prince  then  occupied  the  throne,  Charles  Martel  collected  the  reins 
of  power  into  his  own  hands,  and,  though  nominally  but  an  illustrious  gen- 
eral, became  in  reality  the  ruler  of  France.  Satisfied  with  the  possession  of 
power  he  was  not  ambitious  of  the  kingly  title,  or  thought  it  not  prudent  to 
grasp  at  too  much  at  once. 

At  the  death  of  Charles  Martel,  his  son  Pepin,  a  man  of  great  energy  and 
ambition,  drove  the  imbecile  king,  Childeric  III.,  into  a  cloister,  and  took 
his  seat  unresisted  upon  the  throne.  The  dynasty  thus  established  is  called 
the  Carlovingian,  from  Charlemagne,  the  most  illustrious  of  this  line  of  kings. 
The  nation  cordially  approved  of  the  act.  As  Pepin  could  not  claim  the 
throne  by  right  of  hereditary  descent,  he  founded  his  title  to  reign  upon  the 
regal  power  which  his  father  had  in  reality  exercised,  and  upon  the  well- 
known  assent  of  the  nation.  To  confirm  his  authority  still  more,  he  appealed 
to  the  Pope.  The  Church  was  now  in  the  plenitude  of  its  power ;  and  the 
Pope,  grateful  for  the  service  which  Charles  Martel  had  rendered  the  Church 
by  driving  back  the  infidels,  with  alacrity  consented  to  establish  Pepin  upon 
the  throne  by  the  august  rites  of  religion. 

Pepin,  as  his  leading  warriors  had  now  become  horsemen,  changed  the 
time  of  the  general  assemblies  from  the  month  of  March  to  Ma}',  as  the 
latter  month  was  more  convenient  for  forage,  and  the  Assembly  hence  re- 
ceived the  name  of  Fields  of  May,  Chcnnj^s  de  Mai.  At  these  meetings  the 
king  presided,  and  the  body  was  composed  of  the  higher  clergy  and  the 
nobility.  Occasionally,  a  small  delegation  of  the  most  distinguished  of  the 
people,  who  were  called  the  Third  Estate,  Tiers  Ftat,  had  been  admitted. 
Pepin  called  together  only  the  clergy  and  the  nobility,  declining  to  admit 
the  Third  Estate  to  the  Assembly.  Subsequently  some  kings  admitted  the 
Third  Estate,  and  others  excluded  them,  according  to  their  caprice.  Ques- 
tions relating  to  war,  peace,  and  the  enactment  of  general  laws  were  sub- 
mitted to  this  body,  and  decided  by  the  majority.  The  chiefs  only  could 
speak.  The  assembled  warriors  clamorously  and  with  clashing  of  arms  ex- 
pressed assent  or  dissent. 

The  world-renowned  Charlemagne,  succeeding  his  father  Pepin,  ascended 
the  throne  in  the  year  768.  France  at  that  time  presented  every  where  an 
aspect  of  decay  and  wild  disorder.  This  monarch,  illustrious  both  as  a  war- 
rior and  a  statesman,  fused  the  heterogeneous  and  warring  tribes  into  a  com- 
pact nation.  Still,  the  mass,  though  consolidated,  was  conglomerate,  its 
component  parts  distinctly  defined.  All  France  bowed  submissive  to  his 
sway.  Like  a  whirlwind  he  traversed  Spain  with  his  armies.  Italy  speed- 
ily acknowledged  his  supremacy.  The  vast  empire  of  Charlemagne  soon 
vied  with  that  of  ancient  Home,  embracing  nearly  the  whole  of  Europe. 

It  was  an  inii)ortant  point  in  the  policy  of  Charlemagne  to  humble  the 
nobles,     lie  wished  to  surround  his  throne  with  an  aristocracy  enjoying 


768.]  ORIGIN  OF  THE  FRENCH  MONARCHY.  21 

privilege  and  splendor,  but  deprived  of  all  political  power.  lie  wished 
himself  to  appoint  the  rulers  of  the  provinces,  and  not  to  allow  those  of&ces 
to  be  hereditary  with  the  counts  and  the  dukes.  Therefore  he  endeavored 
to  ally  the  jjeople  with  himself  in  resisting  the  powerful  barons.  He  also, 
with  the  same  object  in  view,  sedulously  courted  the  affections  of  the 
Church,  conferring  many  of  the  most  important  offices  of  the  state  upon  the 
high  ecclesiastics. 

Charlemagne  ordered  the  Assembly  to  meet  twice  every  3^ear.  Every 
count  was  commanded  to  bring  to  this  congress  thirteen  of  the  most  influen- 
tial of  the  people  within  his  jurisdiction.  They  usually  met  in  two  bodies, 
the  ecclesiastical  leaders  in  one  spot,  the  military  in  another.  Sometimes, 
by  order  of  the  king,  they  both  met  together.  The  king  held  his  court  at  a 
little  distance,  and  by  messengers  received  constant  reports  from  the  two 
bodies.  Weighing  the  result  of  their  deliberations,  he  issued  his  decree, 
which  all  recognized  as  law.  Such  was  the  germ  of  deliberative  assemblies 
in  France. 

Charlemagne  established  several  schools.  In  these  he  assembled  for  se- 
vere study  many  of  the  young  men  of  the  empire,  selecting  the  low-born  as 
well  as  the  sons  of  the  nobles.  As  he  was  very  desirous  that  his  reign 
should  be  embelhshed  by  the  attainments  of  men  of  letters,  he  frequently 
examined  these  schools  himself     One  of  the  historians  of  those  days  writes : 

"  When,  after  a  long  absence,  Charlemagne  returned  to  Gaul,  he  ordered 
the  children  to  be  brought  to  him,  to  show  him  their  exercises  and  verses. 
Those  belonging  to  the  lower  classes  exhibited  works  beyond  all  hope,  but 
those  of  noble  descent  had  only  trifles  to  show.  The  wise  monarch,  imitat- 
ing the  Eternal  Judge,  placed  those  w^ho  had  done  well  on  his  right  hand, 
and  thus  addressed  them  : 

"  '  A  thousand  thanks,  my  sons,  for  your  diligence  in  laboring  according 
to  my  orders  and  for  your  own  good.  Proceed.  Endeavor  to  perfect  your- 
selves, and  I  will  reward  you  with  magnificent  bishoprics  and  abbeys,  and 
you  shall  be  ever  honorable  in  my  sight.' 

"  Then  he  bent  an  angry  countenance  upon  those  on  his  left  hand,  and, 
troubling  their  consciences  with  a  lightning  look,  with  bitter  irony,  and 
thundering  rather  than  speaking,  he  burst  upon  them  with  this  terrible 
apostrophe : 

"  '  But  for  you,  nobles,  you  sons  of  the  great — delicate  and  pretty  minions 
as  you  are,  proud  of  your  birth  and  your  riches — you  have  neglected  my  or- 
ders and  your  own  glory,  and  the  study  of  letters,  and  have  given  yourselves 
up  to  ease,  sports,  and  idleness.' 

"  After  this  preamble,  raising  on  high  his  august  head  and  his  invincible 
arm,  he  fulminated  his  usual  oath : 

"  '  By  the  King  of  Heaven  I  care  little  for  your  nobility  and  beauty,  how- 
ever others  may  admire  you.  You  may  hold  it  for  certain  that,  if  you  do 
not  make  amends  for  your  past  negligence  by  vigilant  zeal,  you  will  never 
obtain  any  thing  from  Charles.'  "* 

Wherever  Charlemagne  led  his  legions,  he  baptized  the  vanquished ;  and 
the  conquered  tribes  and  nations  called  themselves  Christians.     The  ig-norant 

*  Monach.  Sangall,  b.  i.,  c.  ii.,  sqq.,  as  quoted  by  Jlicbelet. 


22  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  I. 

• 
barbarians  eagerly  accepted  the  sacrament  for  the  sake  of  the  white  baptis- 
mal robe  which  was  given  to  each  proselyte. 

The  vast  empire  of  Charlemagne  under  his  effeminate  successors  rapidly 
crumbled  to  pieces.  In  ceaseless  conflicts  and  fluctuations  the  chiefs  of  the 
tribes,  or  nobles,  gradually  regained  the  power  which  had  been  wrested  from 
them  by  Charlemagne.  Upon  the  ruins  of  the  empire  arose  the  feudal  sys- 
tem, and  France  became  a  monarchy  but  in  name.  The  throne,  shorn  of  its 
energies,  retained  but  the  shadow  of  power.  Haughty  dukes,  surrounded 
by  their  warlike  retainers,  and  impregnable  in  massive  castles  which  had 
been  the  work  of  ages,  exercised  over  their  own  vassals  all  the  prerogatives 
of  royalty,  and  often  eclipsed  the  monarch  in  wealth  and  splendor.  The 
power  of  the  duke  became  so  absolute  over  the  serfs  who  tilled  his  acres, 
and  who  timidly  huddled  for  protection  beneath  the  ramparts  of  the  castle, 
that,  in  the  language  of  the  feudal  code,  the  duke  "might  take  all  they  had, 
alive  or  dead,  and  imprison  them  when  he  pleased,  being  accountable  to 
none  but  God." 

France  again  became  but  a  conglomeration  of  independent  provinces,  with 
scarcely  any  bond  of  union.  The  whole  landscape  was  dotted  with  castles 
strongly  built  upon  the  river's  bluflf,  or  upon  the  craggy  hill.  These  baro- 
nial fortresses,  massive  and  sombre,  were  flanked  by  towers  pierced  with 
loop-holes  and  fortified  with  battlements.  A  ditch  often  encircled  the  walls, 
and  an  immense  portcullis  or  suspended  gate  could  at  any  moment  be  let 
down,  to  exclude  all  entrance.  The  apartments  were  small  and  comfortless, 
with  narrow  and  grated  windows.  There  was  one  large  banqueting-hall, 
the  seat  of  baronial  splendor,  where  the  lord  met  his  retainers  and  vassals  in 
intercourse  in  which  aristocratic  supremacy  and  democratic  equality  were 
most  strangely  blended.  Every  knight  swore  fealty  to  the  baron,  the  baron 
to  the  duke,  the  duke  to  the  king.  The  sovereign  could  claim  military 
service  from  his  vassals,  but  could  exercise  no  power  over  their  serfs,  either 
legislative  or  judicial.  It  not  unfrequently  happened  that  some  duke  had  a 
larger  retinue  and  a  richer  income  than  the  king  himself 

A  poor  knight  implored  of  the  Count  of  Champagne  a  marriage-portion 
for  his  daughter.  A  wealthy  citizen  who  chanced  to  be  present  said,  "M}'- 
lord  has  already  given  away  so  much  that  he  has  nothing  left."  "  You  do 
not  speak  the  truth,"  said  the  count,  "  since  I  have  got  yourself;"  and  he 
immediately  delivered  him  up  to  the  knight,  who  seized  him  by  the  collar, 
and  would  not  liberate  him  until  he  had  paid  a  ransom  of  twenty-five  hund- 
red dollars.  A  French  knight  relates  this  story  as  an  instance  of  the  count's 
generosity. 

These  lords  were  often  highway  robbers.  Scouts  traversed  the  country, 
and  armed  men  who  filled  their  castles  watched  for  travelers.  The  rich 
merchant  who  chanced  to  fall  into  their  hands  was  not  only  despoiled  of  all 
his  goods,  but  was  often  thrown  into  a  dungeon,  and  even  tortured  until  he 
purchased  his  ransom  at  a  price  commensurate  with  his  ability. 

Under  this  feudal  sway  the  eldest  son  was  the  sole  possessor.  "  As  for 
the  younger  children,"  exclaims  Michelet,  with  indignant  sarcasm,  "  theirs  is 
a  vast  inheritance!  They  have  no  less  than  all  the  highways,  and  over  and 
above,  all  that  is  under  tlie  vault  of  heaven.     Their  bed  is  the  threshold  of 


911.]  ORIGIN  OF  THE  FRENCH  MONARCHY.  23 

their  father's  house,  from  which,  shivering  and  ahungered,  they  can  look 
upon  their  elder  brother  sitting  alone  by  the  hearth  where  they  too  have 
sat  in  the  happy  days  of  their  childhood,  and  perhaps  he  will  order  a  few 
morsels  to  be  flung  to  them  notwithstanding  the  dogs  do  growl.  'Down, 
dogs,  down,  they  are  my  brothers!  they  must  have  something  as  well  as 
you.'" 

The  Church  was  the  only  asylum  for  the  younger  sons  of  these  great  fam- 
ilies. In  her  bosom  ambitious  ecclesiastics,  as  bishops,  archbishops,  and  car- 
dinals, often  attained  a  degree  of  splendor  and  of  authority  which  the  baron, 
the  count,  or  the  duke  in  vain  strove  to  emulate.  The  unmarried  daugh- 
ters took  refuge  in  the  monasteries,  or  were  shut  up,  in  seclusion  which  was 
virtual  imprisonment,  in  the  corners  of  the  old  chateaux.  Thus  the  con- 
vents, those  castles  of  the  Church,  were  reared  and  supported  mainly  to  pro- 
vide for  the  privileged  class.  The  peasant  in  the  furrow  looked  with  equal 
dread  upon  the  bishop  and  the  baron,  and  regarded  them  equally  as  his  op- 
pressors. 

These  proud  bishops  assumed  the  character  and  the  haughty  air  of  feudal 
lords.  They  scorned  to  ride  upon  the  lowly  mule,  but  vaulted  upon  the 
back  of  the  charger  neighing  for  the  battle.  They  were  ever  ready  for  a 
fray,  and  could  strike  as  sturdy  blows  as  ever  came  from  the  battle-axe  of  a 
knight.  The  vows  of  celibacy  were  entirely  disregarded.  Some  took  wives ; 
others  openly  kept  concubines.  These  younger  sons  of  the  nobles,  dressed 
in  the  garb  of  the  Church,  were  found  to  be  such  dangerous  characters  that 
there  was  a  general  demand  that  they  should  be  married.  "Laymen  are  so 
convinced,"  says  one  of  the  ancient  writers,  "  that  none  ought  to  be  unmar- 
ried, that  in  most  parishes  they  will  not  abide  a  priest  except  he  have  a  con- 
cubine." The  lords  spiritual  endeavored  to  fashion  the  Church  upon  the 
model  of  the  feudal  system.  Abbeys  and  bishoprics,  with  all  their  rich  en- 
dowments, passed  by  descent  to  the  children  of  the  bishops.* 

An  incident  which  occurred  in  the  year  911  throws  much  light  upon  the 
rudeness  of  those  barbaric  times.  Rollo,  the  chieftain  of  a  band  of  Norman 
pirates,  entered  the  Seine,  committing  fearful  ravages.  Charles  lY.,  appro- 
priately called  Charles  the  Simple,  alarmed  by  his  progress  and  unable  to 
raise  a  force  sufiicient  to  check  him,  sent  an  archbishop  to  offer  him  the  pos- 
session of  Normandy,  with  the  title  of  hereditary  duke,  if  he  would  peace- 
ably take  possession  of  this  territory  and  swear  allegiance  to  the  king.  Rollo 
eagerly  accepted  the  magnificent  offer.  In  performing  the  ceremony  of 
swearing  fealty,  it  was  necessary,  according  to  custom,  for  Rollo  to  prostrate 
himself  before  the  king  and  kiss  his  feet.  The  haughty  Norman,  when  called 
upon  to  perform  the  ceremony,  indignantly  drew  himself  up,  exclaiming, 

"  Never,  never  will  I  kiss  the  foot  or  bow  the  knee  to  mortal  man." 

After  some  delay  it  was  decided  that  the  act  of  homage  should  be  per- 
formed by  proxy,  and  Rollo  ordered  one  of  his  stalwart  soldiers  to  press  his 
lip  upon  the  foot  of  the  king.  The  burly  barbarian  strode  forward,  as  if  in 
obedience  to  the  command,  and,  seizing  the  foot  of  the  monarch,  raised  it 
high  above  his  head,  and  threw  the  monarch  prostrate  upon  the  floor.  The 
Norman  soldiers  filled  the  hall  with  derisive  shouts  of  laughter,  while  the 
*  See  the  abundant  proof  of  these  statements  in  Michelet's  History  of  France,  p.  193. 


24:  THE  FRENCH  KEVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  I. 

king  and  his  courtiers,  intimidated  by  barbarians  so  fierce  and  defiant,  pru- 
dently concealed  their  chagrin. 

The  Carlovingian  dynasty  held  the  throne  for  two  hundred  and  thirty-five 
years.  Louis  V.,  the  last  of  this  race,  died  in  987.  He  was  called,  from  his 
indolence  and  imbecility,  the  Idler.  As  he  sank  into  an  inglorious  grave, 
an  energetic  and  powerful  noble,  Hugh  Capet,  Duke  of  the  Isle  of  France, 
with  vigorous  arm  thrust  the  hereditary  claimant  into  a  prison  and  ascended 
the  throne.     Thus  was  established  the  third  dynasty,  called  the  Capetian. 

For  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  under  the  Capets,  France  could  hardly 
be  called  a  kingdom.  Though  the  name  of  king  remained,  the  kingly  au- 
thority was  extinct.  The  history  of  France  during  this  period  is  but  a  his- 
tory of  the  independent  feudal  lords,  each  of  whom  held  his  court  in  his  own 
castle.  None  of  these  kings  had  power  to  combine  the  heterogeneous  and 
discordant  elements.  The  fragile  unity  of  the  realm  was  broken  by  differ- 
ences of  race,  of  customs,  of  language,  and  of  laws.  But  in  this  apparent 
chaos  there  was  one  bond  of  union,  the  Church,  which  exerted  an  almost 
miraculous  sway  over  these  uncultivated  and  warlike  men.  The  ecclesias- 
tics were  strongly  in  favor  of  the  Capets,  and  were  highly  instrumental  in 
placing  them  upon  the  throne. 

With  the  Capets  commenced  a  royal  line  which,  in  its  different  branches, 
running  through  the  houses  of  Valois  and  of  Bourbon,  retained  the  throne 
for  eight  hundred  years,  until  the  fall  of  Louis  XYI.  in  1793. 

About  the  year  1100  we  begin  to  hear  the  first  faint  murmurs  of  the  peo- 
ple. Some  bold  minds  ventured  the  suggestion  that  a  man  ought  to  be  free 
to  dispose  of  the  produce  of  his  own  labor,  to  marry  his  children  without 
the  consent  of  another,  to  go  and  come,  sell  and  buy  without  restriction. 
Indeed,  in  Normandy  the  peasants  broke  out  in  a  revolt.  But  steel-clad 
knights,  in  sweeping  squadrons,  cut  them  down  mercilessly  and  trampled 
them  beneath  iron  hoofs.  The  most  illustrious  of  the  complainants  were 
seized  and  hung  to  the  trees,  as  a  warning  to  all  murmurers.  The  people 
were  thus  taught  that  trees  made  good  gibbets.  When  their  turn  came  they 
availed  themselves  of  this  knowledge. 

In  the  year  1294  Philip  the  Fair  established  a  court  in  Paris  called  the 
Parliament.  This  was  purely  an  aristocratic  body,  and  was,  in  general,  en- 
tirely subservient  to  the  king's  wishes.  Similar  parliaments  were  estab- 
lished by  the  great  feudal  princes  in  their  provinces.  There  were  occasional 
contentions  between  the  parliaments  and  the  king,  but  the  king  usually  suc- 
ceeded in  compelling  them  to  obedience.  The  Parliament  enjoyed  only  the 
privilege  of  registering  the  royal  edicts.  In  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.  the 
Parliament  ventured  to  express  a  little  objection  to  one  of  the  t3'rannical  or- 
dinances of  the  monarch. 

The  boy-king,  eighteen  years  of  age,  was  astounded  at  such  impudence. 
He  left  the  chase,  and,  hastening  to  the  hall,  entered  it  whip  in  hand.  He 
could  send  them  one  and  all  to  the  Bastille  or  the  block,  and  they  knew  it, 
and  he  knew  it.  The  presence  of  the  king  brought  them  to  terms,  and  they 
immediately  became  as  submissive  as  ftiwniug  spaniels. 


1328.]  ^^^  HOUSES  OF  VALOIS  AND  BOURBON.  25 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  HOUSES   OF  VALOIS  AND   BOURBON. 

The  House  of  Valois. — Luxury  of  the  Court  and  the  Nobles. — Insurrection. — Jaques  Bonhomme. 
— Henry  III. — Henry  IV.,  of  Navarre. — Cardinal  Richelieu. — French  Academy. — Regency 
of  Anne  of  Austria. — Palaces  of  France. — The  Noble  and  the  Ennobled. — Persecution  of  the 
Protestants. — Edict  of  Nantes. — Its  Revocation. — Distress  of  the  Protestants. — Death  of  Louis 
XIV. 

In  the  year  1328  the  direct  line  of  the  Capets  became  extinct  by  the  death 
of  Charles  IV.,  who  left  no  male  descendant.  The  nobles,  assembled  in 
parhament  at  Paris,  assigned  the  crown  to  Philip,  Count  of  Valois,  a  nephew 
of  the  former  king.  He  was  crowned  at  Rheims,  in  May,  1328,  as  Philip  VI. 
The  nobles,  having  thus  obtained  a  king  according  to  their  wishes,  com- 
plained to  him  that  they  had  borrowed  large  sums  of  money  from  wealthy 
merchants  and  artisans,  which  it  was  inconvenient  for  them  to  pay,  and  that 
it  was  not  consistent  with  the  dignity  of  the  French  nobihty  that  they  should 
be  harassed  by  debts  due  to  the  low-born.  The  king  promptly  issued  a  de- 
cree that  all  these  debts  should  be  cut  down  one  fourth,  that  four  months 
grace  should  be  allowed  without  interest,  and  then,  that  these  plebeian  cred- 
itors might  be  reduced  to  a  proper  state  of  humility,  he  ordered  them  all  to 
be  imprisoned  and  their  property  to  be  confiscated.  The  merciless  monarch 
doubled  the  taxes  upon  the  people,  and  created  a  court  at  Paris  of  such  mag- 
nificence that  the  baronial  lords  abandoned  their  castles  and  crowded  to  the 
metropolis  to  share  its  voluptuous  indulgences.  Even  neighboring  kings, 
attracted  by  the  splendor  of  the  Parisian  court,  took  up  their  abode  in  Paris. 
The  nobles  needed  vast  sums  of  money  to  sustain  them  in  such  measureless 
extravagance.  They  accordingly  left  stern  overseers  over  their  estates,  to 
drive  the  peasants  to  their  toil  and  to  extort  from  them  every  possible  far- 
thing. 

The  king,  to  replenish  his  ever-exhausted  purse,  assumed  the  sole  right  of 
making  and  selling  salt  throughout  the  realm.  Each  family,  always  except- 
ing the  nobles,  who  were  then  exempted  from  every  species  of  tax,  was  re- 
quired to  take  a  certain  quantity  at  an  exorbitant  price. 

Vincennes  was  then  the  great  banqueting-hall  of  Europe.  In  its  present 
decay  it  exhibits  but  little  of  the  grandeur  it  presented  four  hundred  years 
ago,  when  its  battlements  towered  above  the  forest  of  oaks,  centuries  old, 
which  surrounded  the  castle — when  plumed  and  blazoned  squadrons  met  in 
jousts  and  tournaments,  and  when,  in  meteoric  splendor,  hunting  bands  of 
lords  and  ladies  swept  the  park. '  Brilliant  as  was  this  spectacle,  no  healthy 
mind  can  contemplate  it  but  with  indignation.  To  support  this  luxury  of  a 
few  thousand  nobles,  thirty  millions  of  people  were  plunged  into  the  extreme 
of  ignorance,  poverty,  and  misery. 

Again  the  king  and  the  nobles  had  empty  purses,  and  were  greatly  in 
debt.     By  an  arbitrary  decree  all  the  coin  of  the  kingdom  was  called  in. 


26  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ClIAP.  II. 

It  was  then  passed  through  the  mint  greatly  debased.  "With  this  debased 
coin  the  debts  were  paid,  and  then  an  order  was  issued  that  the  coin  should 
be  regarded  at  its  depreciated  value. 

With  the  lapse  of  centuries  intelligence  had  gradually  increased,  and  there 
was  now  quite  a  growing  middling  class  between  the  peasants  and  the  no- 
bles— artisans,  merchants,  manufacturers,  and  literary  and  professional  men. 
These  outrages  had  at  length  become  intolerable.  Human  nature  could  en- 
dure no  more.  This  middle  class  became  the  leaders  of  the  blind  and  mad- 
dened masses,  and  hurled  them  in  fury  upon  their  foes.  The  conspiracy 
spread  over  the  kingdom,  and  in  all  the  towns  and  throughout  the  country 
the  signal  for  revolt  was  shnultaneously  given.  It  was  a  servile  insurrec- 
tion, accompanied  by  aU  the  horrors  inevitable  to  such  a  warfare.  The  de- 
based populace,  but  little  elevated  above  the  brute,  were  as  merciless  as  the 
hyena  or  the  wolf.  Phrensied  with  rage  and  despair,  in  howling  bands  they 
burst  upon  the  castles,  and  the  wrongs  of  centuries  were  terrifically  avenged. 
We  need  not  tell  the  story.  Violence,  torture,  flame,  and  blood  exhausted 
their  energies.  Mothers  and  maidens  suffered  all  that  mortals  can  endure 
in  terror,  brutal  indignities,  shame,  and  woe.  In  war  even  the  refined  and 
courteous  often  become  diabolical ;  but  those  who  have  been  degraded  by 
ages  of  ignorance  and  oppression,  when  they  first  break  their  fetters,  gener- 
ally become  fiends  incarnate. 

The  nobles  so  thoroughly  despised  the  peasants  that  they  had  not  dreamed 
that  the  starving,  cringing  boors  would  dare  even  to  think  of  emerging  from 
their  mud  hovels  to  approach  the  lordly  castle  of  rock,  with  its  turrets  and 
battlements  and  warlike  defenders.  The  sheep  might  as  weU  conspire  against 
the  dogs  and  the  wolves.  The  peasant  had  hardly  individuality  enough  even 
to  receive  a  name.  He  was  familiarly  called  Jack  Goodman,  Jaques  Bon- 
homme.  This  insurrection  of  the  Jacks,  or  of  the  Jacquerie  as  it  is  usually 
called,  was,  after  much  devastation  and  bloodshed,  quelled.  Barbaric  phren- 
sy  can  seldom  long  hold  out  against  disciplined  valor.  One  half  of  the  pop- 
ulation of  France  fell  a  prey  to  the  sword,  or  to  the  pestilence  and  famine 
which  ensued. 

This  was  the  first  convulsive  movement  made  by  the  iieojple.  Defeated 
though  they  were,  and  with  their  fetters  riveted  anew,  they  obtained  new 
ideas  of  power  and  right  which  they  never  forgot.  Already  we  begin  to 
hear  many  of  the  phrases  which  four  hundred  years  later  were  upon  all 
lips,  when  the  monarchy  and  the  feudal  aristocracy  were  buried  in  one  com- 
mon grave. 

The  house  of  Valois  retained  the  throne  for  two  hundred  and  sixty-one 
years.  During  these  two  and  a  half  centuries,  as  generations  came  and  went, 
storms  of  war  and  woe  were  incessantly  sweeping  over  France.  The  histor}^ 
of  the  kingdom  during  these  dreary  ages  is  but  the  record  of  the  intrigues 
of  ecclesiastics,  the  conflicts  between  monarchs  and  nobles,  and  the  sweep  of 
maddened  armies.  The  Third  Estate^  the  people,  continued  to  be  deprived  of 
almost  all  social  and  political  rights.  They  were  debased  by  ignorance  and 
depressed  by  intolerable  burdens.  The  monarchy  was  gradually  centraliz- 
ing power.  The  chiefs  and  sub-chiefs  of  the  conglomerated  tribes  were  los- 
ing their  feudal  authority  and  lapsing  into  nobles  of  higher  and  lower  rank. 


1643.]  THE  HOUSES  OF  VALOIS  AND  BOURBON.  27 

whose  splendor  was  obtained  by  exemption  from  all  the  burdens  of  the  state, 
and  by  enormous  taxation  of  the  people.  The  Roman  Catholic  Church,  un- 
der the  Popes,  blazed  with  almost  supernatural  splendor  over  Europe ;  and 
the  high  dignitaries  of  the  Church,  as  lords  spiritual,  were  as  luxurious, 
haughty,  and  domineering  as  were  any  of  the  lords  temporal. 

Henry  III.,  the  last  of  the  Valois  race,  was  stabbed  by  a  friar  in  1589,  and 
died  leaving  no  issue.  Henry  of  Bourbon,  King  of  Navarre,  as  the  nearest 
relative,  claimed  the  crown.  He  ascended  the  throne  as  Henry  IV.,  and 
after  several  years  of  civil  war  put  down  all  opposition.  He  was  the  first 
of  the  Bourbon  family  who  swayed  the  sceptre,  and  by  far  the  most  able  and 
energetic.  Under  his  vigorous  sway  the  kingdom  became  consolidated,  the 
throne  attained  a  great  supremacy  over  the  nobles,  and  the  resources  of  the 
realm  were  greatly  developed.  Henry  IV.  was  sincerely  devoted  to  the  in- 
terests of  France.  He  encouraged  commerce,  manufactures,  and  the  arts ; 
endeavored  to  enforce  equitable  laws,  and  under  his  wise  administration  the 
peojole  made  decided  advances  in  wealth  and  intelligence.  He  retained  the 
throne  for  twenty-one  years,  until  1610,  when  he  died  beneath  the  dagger  of 
an  assassin.  Though  Henry  governed  for-  the  people,  he  did  not  admit 
them  to  any  voice  in  public  affairs.  During  his  long  reign  no  assembly 
was  convened  in  which  the  people  had  any  representation. 

Henry  IV.  at  his  death  left  a  son,  Louis,  nine  years  of  age.  The  mother 
of  this  child,  Mary  of  Medicis,  was  invested  with  the  regency.  When  this 
prince  was  fourteen  years  of  age  he  was  considered  by  the  laws  of  France  as 
having  attained  his  majority.  He  accordingly,  while  thus  but  a  boy,  mar- 
rying a  bride  of  fifteen,  Anne  of  Austria,  ascended  the  throne  as  Louis  XIII. 
For  twenty-eight  years  this  impotent  prince  sat  upon  the  throne,  all  the 
time  in  character  a  bashful  boy  devoid  of  any  qualities  which  could  com- 
mand respect.  Cardinal  Richelieu  was  during  this  reign  the  real  monarch 
of  France.  Measurelessly  ambitious,  arrogant,  and  cruel,  he  consolidated  the 
despotism  of  the  throne,  and  yet,  by  far-reaching  policy,  greatly  promoted 
the  power  and  grandeur  of  the  kingdom.  This  renowned  minister,  stern, 
vindictive,  cruel,  shrinking  from  no  crime  in  the  accomplishment  of  his 
plans,  with  the  dungeons  of  the  Bastilles  of  France  and  the  executioner's  axe 
at  his  command,  held  the  impotent  king  and  the  enslaved  kingdom  for  near- 
ly thirty  years  in  trembling  obedience  to  his  will. 

The  Chateau  of  Versailles  was  commenced  by  Richelieu.  He  also,  in  the 
year  1635,  established  the  French  Academy,  which  has  since  exerted  so  pow- 
erful an  influence  upon  literature  and  science  throughout  Europe.  Richelieu 
died  in  December,  1642,  and  six  months  after,  in  May,  1643,  Louis  XIII., 
who,  during  his  reign,  had  been  but  a  puppet  in  the  hands  of  the  cardinal, 
followed  him  to  the  tomb.  As  the  monarch  was  lying  upon  his  dying  bed, 
he  called  his  little  son,  five  years  of  age,  to  his  side,  and  said  to  him,  "What 
is  your  name  ?"  "  Louis  Fourteenth,"  answered  the  proud  boy,  already  eager 
to  grasp  the  sceptre.     "  Not  yet,  not  yet,"  sadly  rejoined  the  dying  father. 

Anne  of  Austria  held  the  regency  for  nine  years,  until  her  son,  having  at- 
tained the  age  of  fourteen,  had  completed  his  minority  and  assumed  the 
crown.  Under  this  powerful  prince  the  monarchy  of  France,  as  an  unlimit- 
ed despotism,  became  firmly  estabhshed.     The  nobles,  though  deprived  of 


28  THE  FRENCH  KEVOLUTIOX.  [ChAP.  II. 

all  political  power,  were  invested  with  such  enormous  privileges,  enabling 
them  to  revel  in  wealth  and  luxury,  that  they  were  ever  ready  to  unite  with 
the  king  in  quelling  all  uprising  of  the  people,  who  were  equally  robbed  by 
both  monarch  and  noble.  During  the  long  reign  of  this  monarch,  for  Louis 
XIV.  sat  upon  the  throne  for  seventy-two  years,  if  we  consider  his  reign  to 
have  commenced  when  he  was  proclaimed  king  upon  the  death  of  his  fa- 
ther, France  made  vast  strides  in  power,  wealth,  and  splendor.  Palaces  arose 
almost  outvying  the  dreams  of  an  Oriental  imagination.  The  saloons  of 
Marl}^,  the  Tuileries,  the  Louvre,  and  Versailles,  were  brilliant  with  a  splen- 
dor, and  polluted  with  debaucheries,  which  Babylon,  in  its  most  festering 
corruption,  could  not  have  rivaled.  The  nobles,  almost  entirely  surrender- 
ed to  enervating  indulgence,  were  incapacitated  for  any  post  which  required 
intellectual  activity  and  energy.  Hence  originated  a  class  of  men  who  be- 
came teachers,  editors,  scientific  and  literary  writers,  jurists,  and  professional 
men.  In  the  progress  of  commerce  and  manufactures,  wealth  increased  with 
this  class,  and  the  king,  to  raise  money,  would  often  sell,  at  an  enormous 
price,  a  title  of  nobility  to  some  enriched  tradesman. 

A  numerous  and  powerful  middle  class,  rich  and  highly  educated,  was 
thus  gradually  formed,  who  had  emerged  from  the  peojile,  and  whose  sym- 
pathies were  entirely  with  them.  The  nobles  looked  upon  all  these,  how- 
ever opulent,  or  cultivated  in  mind,  or  polished  in  manners,  with  contempt, 
as  low-bom.  They  refused  all  social  intercourse  with  them,  regarding  them 
as  a  degraded  caste.  They  looked  with  even  peculiar  contempt  upon  those 
who  had  purchased  titles  of  nobility. 

They  drew  a  broad  line  of  distinction  between  the  nohles  and  the  ennobhd. 
The  hereditary  aristocracy,  proud  of  a  lineage  which  could  be  traced  through 
a  hundred  generations,  and  which  was  lost  in  the  haze  of  antiquity,  exclaim- 
ed with  pride,  instinct  to  the  human  heart : 

"  You  may  give  a  lucky  tradesman,  in  exchange  for  money,  a  title  of  no- 
bility, but  you  can  not  thus  make  him  a  nobleman ;  you  can  not  thus  con- 
stitute him  a  lineal  descendant  of  the  old  Frank  barons ;  you  can  not  thus 
constitute  him  a  Lorraine,  a  Montmorency,  a  Rohan.  God  alone  can  create 
a  nobleman." 

Thus  they  regarded  a  man  who  had  been  ennobled  by  a  royal  decree,  or 
who  had  descended  from  a  father  or  a  grandfather  tlius  ennobled,  as  a  new 
man,  an  upstart,  one  hardly  redeemed  from  contempt.  The  dooi-s  of  their 
saloons  were  closed  against  him,  and  he  was  every  where  exposed  to  morti- 
fying neglect.  A  noble  whose  lineage  could  be  traced  for  two  or  three  cen- 
turies, but  whose  origin  was  still  distincthj  defined^  was  considered  as  perhaps 
belonging  to  the  aristocratic  calendar,  though  of  low  estate.  The  fiict  that 
the  time  once  was,  when  his  ancestors  were  known  to  be  low-born,  was  a 
damaging  fact,  which  no  subsequent  ages  of  nobility  could  entirely  cftacc. 
He  only  was  the  true  noble,  the  origin  of  whose  nobility  was  lost  in  the 
depths  of  the  past,  the  line  of  whose  ancestry  ran  so  far  back  into  the  ob- 
scurity of  by-gone  ages  that  no  one  could  tell  when  it  commenced. 

It  has  generally  been  said  that  there  were  three  estates  in  the  realm ;  the 
clergy  coni])osing  the  first,  the  nobles  the  second,  and  the  people  the  third. 
But  the  higher  class  of  the  clergy,  luxuriating  in  the  bishoprics  and  the  ab- 


1662.]  THE  HOUSES  OF  VALOIS  AND  BOURBON.  29 

bacies,  with  their  rich  emoluments,  were  the  sons  of  the  nobihty,  and  shared 
in  all  the  privileges  and  popular  odium  pertaining  to  that  class.  The  lower 
clergy,  devoted  to  apostolic  labors  and  poverty,  belonged  to  the  people,  and 
were  with  them  in  all  their  sympathies.  Thus  there  were  in  reahty  but  two 
classes,  the  privileged  and  the  unjmvileged,  the  patrician  and  the  j^ieheian,  the 
tax  payer  and  the  tax  receiver.  The  castle,  whether  baronial  or  monastic  in 
its  architecture,  was  the  emblem  of  the  one,  the  thatched  cottage  the  symbol 
of  the  other.  Louis  XIV.,  as  Madame  de  Maintenon  testifies,  was  shocked  to 
learn  that  Jesus  Christ  associated  with  the  poor  and  the  humble,  and  con- 
versed freely  with  them. 

Soon  after  the  succession  of  Louis  XIY.  to  the  throne  he  became  con- 
vinced that  the  maintenance  of  the  Komish  hierarchy  was  essential  to  the 
stability  of  his  power.  He  consequently  commenced  a  series  of  persecutions 
of  the  Protestants,  with  the  determination  of  driving  that  faith  entirely  from 
France.  In  1662  he  issued  a  decree  that  no  Protestant  should  be  buried  ex- 
cept after  sunset  or  before  sunrise.  Protestant  mechanics  or  shop-keepers 
were  not  allowed  to  have  apprentices.  Protestant  teachers  were  permitted 
to  instruct  only  in  the  first  rudiments  of  letters,  and  not  more  than  twelve 
Protestants  were  allowed  to  meet  together  for  the  jDurposes  of  worship.  No 
Protestant  woman  could  be  a  nurse  in  the  chamber  of  infancy ;  no  Catholic 
could  embrace  Protestantism  or  marry  a  Protestant  woman  under  pain  of 
exile.  Catholic  magistrates  were  empowered  to  enter  the  dying  chambers 
of  the  Protestants  to  tease  them,  when  gasping  in  death,  to  return  to  the 
Catholic  faith.  In  four  years,  between  1680  and  168-1,  more  than  twenty 
royal  edicts  were  issued  against  the  Protestants,  decreeing,  among  other 
things,  that  no  Protestant  should  be  a  lawyer,  doctor,  apothecary,  printer,  or 
grocer.  Children  were  often  taken  by  violence  from  Protestant  parents,  that 
they  might  be  trained  in  the  Catholic  faith. 

Madame  de  Maintenon,  the  unacknowledged  wife  of  Louis  XIY.,  wished 
to  bring  back  into  the  fold  of  Eome  a  young  lady.  Mademoiselle  de  Mur9ay. 
She  consequently  wrote  to  her  brother  : 

"  If  you  could  send  her  to  me  you  would  do  me  a  great  pleasure.  There 
are  no  other  means  than  violence,  for  they  will  be  much  afflicted  in  the 
family  by  De  Mur9ay's  conversion.  I  will  send  you  a  lettre  de  cachet  (secret 
warrant)  in  virtue  of  which  you  will  take  her  into  your  own  house  until  you 
find  an  opportunity  of  sending  her  off."* 

Such  outrages  as  these  were  of  constant  occurrence.  Zeal  for  the  con- 
version of  the  Protestants  never  rose  to  a  higher  pitch.  At  the  same  time 
Louis  XIY.  could  bid  defiance  to  God's  commands,  and  insult  the  moral 
sense  of  the  nation  by  traveling  with  his  wife  and  his  two  guilty  favorites, 
Madame  de  Montespan  and  Madame  la  Yalliere,  all  in  the  same  carriage. 
The  profligacy  of  the  ecclesiastics  and  the  debauchery  of  the  court  and  the 
nobles,  though  less  disguised  during  the  wild  saturnalia  of  the  succeeding 
regency,  was  never  more  universal  than  during  this  reign.  This  was  the 
golden  age  of  kings.  Feudality  had  died,  and  democracy  was  not  born. 
The  monarchy  was  absolute.     The  nobles,  deprived  of  all  p)olitical  power, 

*  Histoire  de  Madame  de  Maintenon,  et  des  principaux  Evenements  du  Regne  de  Louis  XIV. 
Par  M.  Ic  Due  de  Noilles,  Paris,  1848. 


30  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  II. 

existed  merely  as  a  luxurious  appendage  and  embellishment  to  the  throne, 
while  the  people,  unconscious  of  either  power  or  rights,  made  no  movements 
to  embarrass  the  sovereign.* 

In  the  year  1681  Louis  XIV.  commenced  his  system  of  dragooning  the 
Protestants  into  the  Catholic  faith.  He  sent  regiments  of  cavalry  into  the 
provinces,  quartered  them  in  the  houses  of  the  Protestants,  placing  from  four 
to  ten  in  each  family,  and  enjoined  it  upon  these  soldiers  to  do  every  thing 
they  could  to  compel  the  Protestants  to  return  to  the  Catholic  faith.  Scenes 
ensued  too  awful  to  be  narrated.  He  who  has  nerves  to  endure  the  recital 
can  find  the  atrocities  minutely  detailed  in  ^^  Lllisioire  de  VEdit  de  Nanies^par 
Elias  BenoUy 

The  brutal  soldiery,  free  from  all  restraint,  committed  every  conceivable 
excess.  They  scourged  little  children  in  the  presence  of  their  parents,  that 
the  shrieks  of  agony  of  the  child  might  induce  the  parents  to  abjure  their 
faith.  They  violated  the  modesty  of  women  and  girls,  and  mangled  their 
bodies  with  the  lash.  They  tortured,  mutilated,  disfigured.  And  when 
human  nature  in  its  extreme  of  agony  yielded,  the  exhausted  victim  was 
compelled  to  sign  a  recantation  of  his  faith,  declaring  that  he  did  it  of  his 
own  free  will,  without  compulsion  or  persuasion.  In  their  terror  the  Prot- 
estants fled  in  all  directions,  into  the  fields,  the  forests,  to  caves,  and  made 
desperate  endeavors  to  escape  from  the  kingdom.  Multitudes  died  of  ex- 
haustion and  famine  by  the  way-side  and  on  the  sea-shore.  Large  tracts  of 
country  were  thus  nearly  depopulated.  Madame  de  Maintenon  wrote  to 
her  brother,  sending  him  a  present  of  a  large  sum  of  money : 

"I  beseech  you  employ  usefully  the  money  you  are  to  have.  The  lands 
in  Poitou  are  sold  for  nothing.  The  distresses  of  the  Protestants  will  bring 
more  into  market.     You  can  easily  establish  yourself  splenc^dly  in  Poitou." 

The  Protestant  countries,  England,  Switzerland,  Holland,  and  Denmark, 
issued  proclamations  to  these  persecuted  Christians  offering  them  an  asylum. 
The  court  was  alarmed,  and  interdicted  their  leaving  the  kingdom  under 
penalty  of  condemnation  to  the  galleys,  confiscation  of  their  property,  and 
the  annulling  of  all  contracts  they  should  have  made  for  a  year  before  their 
emigration.f 

The  condition  of  the  Protestants  was  now  miserable  in  the  extreme.  It 
was  the  determination  of  the  court  utterly  to  exterminate  the  reformed  f;\ith. 
The  Archbishop  of  Paris  made  out  a  list  of  the  works  of  four  hundred 
authors  who  were  considered  as  assailing  Catholicism,  and  all  the  libraries, 
public  and  private,  of  the  kingdom  were  searched  that  the  condemned  books 
might  be  burned. 

There  were  between  two  and  three  millions  of  Protestants  in  France.:}:    The 

*  "Madftme  dc  Mnintpnon,"  writes  St.  Simon,  "had  mm,  affairs,  justice,  religion,  ail,  with- 
out exception,  in  her  hands,  and  the  kinj;  and  the  state  her  victims." 

t  Under  these  circumstances  the  Protestants  sent  the  followinp  touching  jx-tition  :  "It  heinp 
impossihle  for  us  to  live  without  the  exercise  of  our  religion,  we  are  comj)elled,  in  si)ite  of  our- 
selves, to  Kui.i.licate  your  majesty,  with  the  most  i.rofound  humility  and  resi.ect,  that  vou  mav  he 
I)lenficd  to  allow  us  to  leave  the  kinpdom,  with  our  wives,  our  children,  and  our  effects,  to  settle 
in  foreign  countries,  where  we  can  freely  render  to  God  the  worship  which  wc  believe  indis|)ens- 
nhlc,  and  on  which  depends  our  happiness  or  our  misery  for  eternitv."  This  i>efition  met  onlv 
the  resj)onsc  of  a^'pravatcd  severities.— ///.vr  o/ihv  I'mirsiuufs  of  France,  by  G.  de  Felice,  p.  480.  " 

I  History  of  tlic  Trotestants  of  France,  by  G.  de  Felice,  i).  405. 


1685.]  THE  HOUSES  OF  VALOIS  AND  BOUKBON.  31 

dragoons  were  sent  in  every  direction  tlarougli  the  kingdom,  enjoined  by  the 
court,  to  secure,  at  whatever  expense  of  torture,  a  return  to  CathoUcism. 
One  of  the  tortures  which  these  merciless  fanatics  were  fond  of  apj^lying  was 
to  deprive  their  victim  of  sleep.  They  kept  the  sufferer  standing,  and  re- 
lieved each  other  in  their  cruel  work  of  pinching,  pricking,  twitching,  pull- 
ing with  ropes,  burning,  suffocating  with  offensive  fumes,  until  after  succes- 
sive days  and  nights  of  torture  the  victim  was  driven  to  madness,  and  to 
promise  any  thing  to  escape  from  his  tormentors.  By  these  means,  it  was 
boasted  that  in  the  district  of  Bordeaux,  where  there  were  one  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  Protestants,  one  hundred  and  forty  thousand  were  converted 
in  a  fortnight.  The  Duke  of  Noailles  wrote  to  the  court  that  in  the  district 
to  which  he  had  been  sent  with  his  dragoons  there  had  been  two  hundred 
and  forty  thousand  Protestants,  but  he  thought  that  by  the  end  of  the  month 
none  could  be  left. 

In  the  year  1598  Henry  IV.,  by  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  had  granted  freedom 
of  conscience  and  of  worship  to  the  Protestants.  Louis  XIV.  now  issued  a 
decree  revoking  this  edict.  The  revocation,  which  was  signed  the  18th  of 
October,  1685,  states  in  the  preamble  that  "since  the  better  and  the  greater 
part  of  our  subjects  of  the  pretended  reformed  religion  have  embraced  the 
Catholic  faith,  the  maintenance  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  remains  superfluous." 
It  then  declares  that  no  more  exercise  of  the  reformed  worship  is  to  be  tol- 
erated in  the  realm.  All  the  Protestant  pastors  were  to  leave  the  kingdom 
within  fifteen  days,  and  were  forbidden  to  exercise  their  office  under  pain 
of  the  galleys.  Parents  were  forbidden  to  instruct  their  children  in  the  re- 
formed faith,  and  were  enjoined  to  send  them  to  the  Catholic  church  to  be 
baptized  and  to  be  instructed  in  the  Catholic  schools  and  catechism,  under 
penalty  of  a  fine  of  five  hundred  livres.  The  Protestant  laity  were  pro- 
hibited from  emigrating  under  pain  of  the  galleys  for  the  men,  and  imprison- 
ment for  life  for  the  women. 

Notwithstanding  the  penalty,  vast  numbers  escaped  from  the  kingdom. 
No  vigilance  could  guard  such  extended  frontiers.  In  one  year  after  the 
revocation,  Vauban  wrote  that  France  had  lost  one  hundred  thousand  inhab- 
itants, twelve  thousand  disciplined  soldiers,  six  hundred  officers,  and  her 
most  flourishing  manufactures.  The  Duke  of  St.  Simon  records  that  "  a 
fourth  part  of  the  kingdom  was  perceptibly  depopulated." 

These  crimes  perpetrated  against  religion  filled  the  land  with  infidelity. 
There  were  even  Catholics  of  noble  name  and  note,  as  Fenelon  and  Massil- 
lon,  who  energetically  remonstrated.  Montesquieu,  Voltaire,  Eousseau,  and 
Mirabeau,  not  distinguishing  between  Christianity  and  the  Papal  Church, 
uttered  cries  of  indignation  which  thrilled  upon  the  ear  of  Europe  and  un- 
dermined the  foundations  of  Christianity  itself 

The  edict  of  revocation  was  executed  with  the  utmost  rigor.  The  pas- 
tors in  Paris  were  not  allowed  even  the  fifteen  days  which  the  edict  granted, 
but  were  ordered  to  leave  in  forty-eight  hours.  Those  pastors  who  had 
children  over  seven  years  of  age  had  those  children  taken  from  them.  Fa- 
thers and  mothers,  thus  robbed  of  their  children,  in  poverty  and  heart-bro- 
ken, were  driven  into  exile.  "  Old  men  of  eighty  or  ninety  years  were  seen 
gathering  up  the  last  remains  of  their  life  to  undertake  distant  journeys,  and 


32  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  II. 

more  than  one  died  before  reaching  the  asylum  where  he  was  to  rest  liis 
weary  foot  and  drooping  head."* 

The  court  became  alarmed  by  the  magnitude  of  emigration.  Guards  were 
posted  at  the  gates  of  towns,  at  the  fords  of  rivers,  on  the  bridges,  on  the 
highways,  and  at  all  points  of  departure  upon  the  frontiers.  Still  the  fugi- 
tives, hiding  in  caverns  by  day  and  traveling  by  night  through  by-paths,  in 
great  numbers  eluded  their  foes.  Every  conceivable  disguise  was  adopted, 
as  of  shepherds,  pilgrims,  hunters,  valets,  merchants.  Women  of  rank — for 
there  were  not  a  few  such  among  the  Protestants,  who  had  been  accustomed 
to  all  the  delicacies  and  indulgences  of  life — traveled  on  foot,  exposed  to 
hunger  and  storms,  two  or  three  hundred  miles.  Girls  of  sixteen,  of  all 
ranks  in  life,  incurred  the  same  hardships  and  pciils.  They  disfigured  their 
faces,  wore  coarse  and  ragged  garments,  and  trundled  wheel-barrows  filled 
with  manure,  or  carried  heavy  burdens,  to  elude  suspicion.  Some  assumed 
the  disguise  of  men  or  boys  and  took  the  office  of  servants ;  others  feigned 
insanity  or  to  be  deaf  and  dumb.  In  these  ways  large  numbers  escaj)ed  to 
Kotterdam.f 

Those  near  the  sea-shore  concealed  themselves  in  ships  among  bales  of 
merchandise,  and  in  hogsheads  stowed  away  among  the  freight.  There 
were  children  who  passed  whole  weeks  in  such  lurking  places  without  utter- 
ing a  cry.  Some  desperately  pushed  out  to  sea  in  open  boats,  trusting  to 
winds  and  waves  to  bear  them  to  a  place  of  safety.  Thousands  perished  of 
cold,  exposure,  and  starvation.  Thousands  were  seized,  loaded  with  chains, 
and  dragged  through  the  realm  in  derision  and  contempt,  and  were  then 
condemned  to  pass  the  remainder  of  their  days  as  galley-slaves.  The  gal- 
leys of  Marseilles  were  crowded  with  these  victims,  among  whom  were  many 
of  the  noblest  men  who  have  ever  dwelt  on  earth.  The  prisons  were  crowd- 
ed with  women  arrested  in  their  flight  and  doomed  to  life-long  captivity. 

It  is  estimated  that  five  hundred  thousand  found  a  refuge  in  foreign  lands. 
Thirteen  hundred  passed  through  the  city  of  Geneva  in  one  week.  England 
formed  eleven  regiments  out  of  the  refugees.  One  of  the  faubourgs  of  Lon- 
don was  entirely  peopled  by  these  exiles.  M.  de  Sismondi  estimates  that  as 
many  perished  in  the  attempt  to  escape  as  escaped.  A  hundred  thousand 
in  the  Province  of  Languedoc  died  prematurely,  and  of  these  ten  thousand 
perislied  by  fire,  the  gallows,  or  the  wheel.:}:  'Wc  can  not  but  sympathize 
with  the  indignation  of  Michclet  as  he  exclaims : 

"  Let  the  Revolutionary  Reign  of  Terror  beware  of  comparing  herself 
with  the  Inquisition.  Let  her  never  boast  of  having,  in  her  two  or  three 
years,  pai<l  back  to  the  old  system  what  it  did  for  us  for  six  hundred  years! 
The  Inquisition  would  have  good  cause  to  laugh.  What  are  the  twelve 
thousand  men  guillotined  of  the  one,  to  the  millions  of  men  butchered,  hung, 
broken  on  the  wheel — to  that  pyramid  of  burning  stakes — to  those  masses 
of  burnt  flesh  which  the  other  piled  up  to  heaven.  The  single  inquisition 
of  one  of  the  provinces  of  Spain  states,  in  an  authentic  monument,  that  in 
sixteen  years  it  burniMl  twenty  thousand  men  ! 

"  History  will  inform  us  that  in  her  most  fcroc-ious  and  implacable  mo- 

•  Histnry  <.f  the  Protpstnnts  of  Frnncp.  by  G.  ilo  T<S\ico,  ]\  408. 

+  HiMtuirc  du  TF/dit  dc  Nanti-s,  imr  Elias  lU-noit,  timx-  v.,  p.  [)r>3.  J  nouliiiiiTillirrs. 


1715.]  THE  HOUSES  OF  VALOIS  AND  BOURBON.  33 

ments  the  Revolution  trembled  at  the  thought  of  aggravating  death,  that 
she  shortened  the  sufferings  of  victims,  removed  the  hand  of  man,  and  in- 
vented a  machine  to  abridge  the  pangs  of  death. 

"  And  it  will  also  inform  us  that  the  Church  of  the  Middle  Ages  exhaust- 
ed itself  in  inventions  to  augment  sufiering,  to  render  it  poignant,  intense ; 
that  she  found  out  exquisite  arts  of  torture,  ingenious  means  to  contrive 
that,  without  dying,  one  might  long  taste  of  death ;  and  that,  being  stopped 
in  that  path  by  inflexible  Nature,  who,  at  a  certain  degree  of  pain,  mercifully 
grants  death,  she  wept  at  not  being  able  to  make  man  suffer  longer."* 

Louis  XIV.  died  in  1715.  He  did  not  allow  any  assembly  of  the  states 
to  be  convened  during  his  reign.  Every  body  began  to  manifest  discontent. 
The  nobility  were  humbled  and  degraded,  and  hungered  for  more  power. 
The  people  had  become  very  restive.  The  humbler  class  of  the  clergy,  sin- 
cere Christians  and  true  friends  of  their  parishioners,  prayed  earnestly  for 
reform.  The  Jesuits  alone  united  with  the  monarch  and  his  mistresses  to 
maintain  despotic  sway.  The  court  was  utterly  corrupt ;  the  king  a  shame- 
less profligate.  Every  thing  was  bartered  for  money.  Justice  was  unknown. 
The  court  reveled  in  boundless  luxury,  while  the  mass  of  the  people  were  in 
a  state  almost  of  starvation.     The  burden  had  become  intolerable. 

The  monarchy  of  France  attained  its  zenith  during  the  reign  of  Louis  XTV. 
Immense  standing  armies  overawed  Europe  and  prevented  revolt  at  home. 
Literature  and  art  flourished,  for  the  king  was  ambitious  to  embellish  his 
reign  with  the  works  of  men  of  genius.  Great  freedom  of  opinion  and  of 
utterance  was  allowed,  for  neither  king  nor  courtiers  appear  to  have  had  any 
more  fear  of  a  rising  of  the  peasants  than  they  had  of  a  revolt  of  the  sheep. 
Vast  works  were  constructed,  which  the  poor  and  the  starving  alone  paid 
for.  Still  there  were  not  a  few  who  perceived  that  the  hour  of  vengeance 
was  at  hand.  One  of  the  magistrates  of  Louis  XI Y.  remarked,  "  The  con- 
flict is  soon  to  arrive  between  those  who  pay  and  those  whose  only  function 
is  to  receive."  The  Duke  of  Orleans,  who  was  regent  after  the  death  of 
Louis  XIV.,  said,  "  If  I  were  a  subject  I  would  most  certainly  revolt.  The 
people  are  good-natured  fools  to  suffer  so  long." 

Louis  XIV.  left  the  throne  to  his  great-grandchild,  a  boy  five  years  of 
age.  The  populace  followed  the  hearse  of  the  departed  monarch  with  in- 
sults and  derisive  shouts  to  the  tomb.  The  hoary  despot,  upon  a  dying  bed, 
manifested  some  compunctions  of  conscience.  He  left  to  his  successor  the 
words : 

"  I  have,  against  my  inclination,  imposed  great  burdens  on  my  subjects ; 
but  have  been  compelled  to  do  it  by  the  long  wars  which  I  have  been 
obliged  to  maintain.  Love  peace,  and  undertake  no  war,  except  when  the 
good  of  the  state  and  the  welfare  of  your  people  render  it  necessary." 

*  "  It  is  painful  to  detect  continually  the  hand  of  the  clergy  in  these  scenes  of  violence,  spolia- 
tion, and  death.  The  venerable  Malesherbes,  the  Baron  de  Breteuil,  Rulhieres,  Joly  de  Fleury, 
Gilbert  de  Voisins,  Rippert  de  Monclus,  the  highest  statesmen,  the  most  eminent  magistrates, 
who  have  wi-itten  upon  the  religious  affairs  of  this  period,  utter  but  one  voice  on  it.  They  agree 
in  signalizing  the  influence  of  the  priests,  an  influence  as  obstinate  as  incessant,  sometimes 
haughty,  sometimes  supple  and  humble,  but  always  supplicating  the  last  means  of  restraint  and 
severity  for  the  re-establishment  of  religious  unity." — History  of  the  Protestants  of  France,  by  G. 
de  Felice,  p.  487. 

c 


34  THE  FRENCH  KEVOLUTIOX.  [ChAP.  III. 

These  words  were  not  heeded,  until  the  people  were,  in  their  terrible 
might,  inspired  by  fury  and  despair. 

There  is  nothing  more  mournful  to  contemplate  than  the  last  days  of 
Louis  XIV.  lie  was  the  victim  of  insupportable  melancholy,  dreading 
death  almost  with  terror.  Ilis  children  and  his  grandchildren  were  nearly 
all  dead.  The  peoi)le  were  crushed  by  burdens  which  they  could  no  longer 
support.  The  treasury  was  in  debt  over  eight  hundred  millions  of  dollars. 
Commerce  was  destroyed,  industry  paralyzed,  and  the  country  uncultivated 
and  in  many  places  almost  depopulated.  The  armies  of  France  had  been 
conquered  and  humiliated ;  a  disastrous  war  was  threatening  the  realm,  and 
the  king  from  his  dying  bed  could  hear  the  execrations  of  the  people,  rising 
portentously  around  his  throne. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  REGENCY  AND  LOUIS   XV. 


State  of  France. — The  Regency. — Financial  Embarrassment. — Crimes  of  the  Rulers. — Recoin- 
ing  the  Currency. — Renewed  Persecution  of  the  Protestants. — Bishop  Dubois. — Philosophy 
of  Voltaire. — Anecdote  of  Franklin. — The  King's  Favorites. — Mademoiselle  Poisson. — Her 
Ascendency. — Pare  aitx  Ccrfs. — Illustrative  Anecdote. — Letter  to  the  King. — Testimony  of 
Chesterfield. — Anecdote  of  La  Fayette. — Death  of  Pompadour.  —  Mademoiselle  Lange. — 
Power  of  Du  Barry. — Death  of  Louis  XV. 

The  reign  of  Louis  XIY.  was  that  of  an  Oriental  monarch.  His  author- 
ity was  unlimited  and  unquestioned.  The  people  had  two  powerful  foes, 
the  king  and  the  nobles.  The  nobles,  as  the  most  numerous,  were  the  most 
dreaded.  The  people  consequently  looked  to  the  kings  to  protect  them 
against  the  nobles,  as  sheep  will  look  to  their  natural  enemy,  the  dogs,  to 
defend  them  from  their  still  worse  enemies,  the  wolves.  The  king  had  now 
obtained  a  perfect  triumph  over  the  nobles,  and  had  gathered  all  the  politi- 
cal power  into  his  own  hands.  He  had  accomplished  this  by  bribery,  as  well 
as  by  force.  The  acquiescence  of  the  nobles  in  his  supremacy  was  purchased 
by  his  conferring  upon  them  all  the  oflices  of  honor  and  emolument,  by  ex- 
empting them  from  all  taxes,  and  by  supporting  them  in  indolence,  luxury, 
and  vice,  from  the  toil  of  the  crushed  and  starving  masses.  There  were  now 
in  the  nation  two  classes,  and  two  only,  with  an  impassable  gulf  between 
them.  On  the  one  side  were  eighty  thousand  aristocratic  fiimilies  living  in 
idleness  and  luxury ;  on  the  other  were  twenty -four  millions  of  people,  who, 
as  a  mass,  were  kept  in  the  lowest  poverty,  maintaining  by  their  toil  the 
haughty  noljlcs,  from  whom  they  received  only  outrage  and  contempt. 

Louis  XIV.  just  before  his  death  drew  up  an  edict  appointing  a  council 
of  regency  during  the  minority  of  his  great-grandi^on,  the  young  king.  The 
Parliament  of  Paris,  however,  declared  the  will  null,  and  appointed  the  Duke 
of  Orleans,  who  was  considered  liivorablc  to  the  nobles,  regent!  For  eight 
years,  from  1715  to  1723,  the  regent,  by  shameless  profligacy  and  extrava- 
gance, was  but  filling  up  the  measure  of  wrath  which  had  been  accumulating 
for  ages.  Nothing  was  done  to  promote  the  welfare  of  the  people,  and,  not- 
withstanding the  misery  which  was  actually  depopulating  the  provinces,  the 


1715.]  THE  EEGENCY  AND  LOUIS  XV.  35 

gorgeous  palaces  of  France  exhibited  scenes  of  voluptuousness  which  the 
wealth  of  the  Orient  had  never  paralleled. 

Louis  XIY.  had  expended  upon  the  single  palace  of  Versailles  more  than 
two  hundred  milhons  of  dollars.  The  roofs  of  that  vast  pile  would  cover  a 
surface  of  twenty-five  French  acres.  Thirty  thousand  laborers  were  fre- 
quently employed  simultaneously  in  embellishing  the  magnificent  park  sixty 
miles  in  circuit.*  Marly,  with  its  fountains,  its  parks,  and  gardens,  had  also 
been  constructed  with  equal  extravagance.  Both  of  these  palaces  exhibited 
scenes  of  measureless  profligacy  gilded  by  the  highest  fascinations  of  exter- 
nal refinement  and  elegance.  Louis  XIV.  left  the  nation  in  debt  eight  hund- 
red and  fifty  millions  of  dollars.  For  several  years  the  expenditure  had 
exceeded  the  income  by  nearly  thirty  millions  of  dollars  a  year.  The  regent 
during  the  seven  years  of  his  profligate  administration  had  added  to  this 
debt  a  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  dollars. 

There  was  now  fearful  embarrassment  in  the  finances.  All  the  measures 
for  extorting  money  seemed  to  be  exhausted,  and  it  w^as  found  impossible  to 
raise  the  sums  necessary  to  meet  the  expenses  of  the  court  and  to  pay  the 
interest  upon  the  debt.  Taxation  had  gone  to  its  last  extremity ;  and  no 
more  money  could  be  borrowed.  The  Duke  of  St.  Simon  proposed  that  the 
treasury  should  declare  itself  bankrupt. 

"  The  loss,"  said  he,  "  will  fall  upon  the  commercial  and  moneyed  classes, 
whom  no  one  fears  or  pities.  The  measure,"  he  continued,  "  will  also  be  a 
salutary  rebuke  to  the  ignoble  classes,  teaching  them  to  beware  how  they 
lend  money  to  the  king  which  will  enable  hun  to  gain  the  supremacy  over 
the  nobles." 

The  Duke  of  Orleans,  who  was  regent  only,  not  king,  could  sympathize 
in  these  views.  The  general  discontent,  kowever,  was  such,  that  he  did  not 
dare  to  resort  to  so  violent  a  measure.  The  end  was  accomplished  in  a  more 
circuitous  way.  A  commission  of  courtiers  was  appointed  to  examine  the 
accounts  of  the  public  creditors.  Three  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  francs 
($76,000,000)  were  peremptorily  struck  from  their  claims.  There  was  no 
appeal.  This  mode  of  paying  debts  seemed  so  successfal  that  the  commis- 
sion established  itself  as  an  inquisitorial  chamber,  and  summoned  before  it 
all  those  who  had  been  guilty  of  lending  money  to  the  king.  Most  of  these 
were  thrown  into  prison,  and  threatened  with  death  unless  they  purchased 
pardon  for  the  crime  with  large  sums  of  money.  The  regent  and  the  nobles 
made  themselves  merry  with  the  woes  of  these  low-born  men  of  wealth,  and 
filled  their  purses  by  selling  their  protection. 

A  wealthy  financier  was  perishing  in  one  of  the  dungeons  of  the  Bastille. 
A  count  visited  him  and  offered  to  procure  his  release  for  sixty  thousand 
dollars.  "I  thank  you,  Monsieur  le  Comte,"  was  the  reply,  "but  Madame, 
your  countess,  has  just  been  here,  and  has  promised  me  my  liberty  for  half 
that  sum." 

The  reign  of  the  regent  Duke  of  Orleans  was  the  reign  of  the  nobles,  and 
they  fell  eagerly  upon  the  people,  whom  Louis  XIV.  had  sheltered  from  their 
avarice  that  more  plunder  might  be  left  for  him.  The  currency  was  called 
in  and  recoined,  one  fifth  being  cut  from  the  value  of  each  piece.  By  this 
expedient  the  court  gained  nearly  fifteen  millions  of  dollars. 

*  Galignani's  Paris  Guide. 


gg  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  III. 

Soon  this  money  was  all  gone.  The  horizon  was  darkening  and  the  ap- 
proaching storm  gathering  blackness.  Among  the  nobles  there  were  some 
who  abhorred  these  outrages.  A  party  was  organized  in  Paris  opposed  to 
the  ret^ent.  They  sent  in  a  petition  that  the  States-General  might  be  assem- 
bled to  deliberate  upon  the  affairs  of  the  realm.  All  who  signed  this  peti- 
tion were  sent  to  the  Bastille.  There  had  been  no  meeting  of  the  States- 
General  called  for  more  than  one  hundred  years.  The  last  had  been  held 
m  1614.  It  consisted  of  10-i  deputies  of  the  clergy,  132  of  the  nobles,  and 
192  of  the  people.  The  three  estates  had  met  separately  and  chosen  their 
representatives.  But  the  representatives  of  the  people  in  this  assembly  dis- 
played so  much  spirit  that  the  convention  was  abruptly  dismissed  by  the 
king,  and  neither  king  nor  nobles  were  willing  to  give  them  a  hearing  again. 

A  bank  was  now  established  with  a.  nominal  capital  of  six  millions  of 
francs  ($1,200,000).  The  shares  were  taken  up  by  paying  half  in  money 
and  half  in  valueless  government  bills.  Thus  the  real  capital  of  the  bank 
was  $600,000.  Upon  this  capital  bills  were  issued  to  the  amount  of  three 
thousand  millions  of  francs  ($600,000,000).  Money  was  of  course  for  a  time 
plenty  enough.  The  bubble  soon  burst.  This  operation  vastly  increased 
the  financial  ruin  in  which  the  nation  was  involved.  Five  hundred  thousand 
citizens  were  plunged  into  bankruptcy.*  The  Parliament  of  Paris,  though 
composed  of  the  privileged  class,  made  a  little  show  of  resistance  to  such  out- 
rages and  was  banished  summarily  to  Pontoise. 

Dubois,  one  of  the  most  infamous  men  who  ever  disgraced  even  a  court,  a 
tool  of  the  regent,  and  yet  thoroughly  despised  by  him,  had  the  audacity 
one  morning  to  ask  for  the  vacant  archbishopric  of  Cambray.  Dubois 
was  not  even  a  priest,  and  the  demand  seemed  so  ridiculous  as  well  as  im- 
pudent that  the  regent  burst  into  a  laugh,  exclaiming, 

""Should  I  bestow  the  archbishopric  on  such  a  knave  as  thou  art,  where 
should  I  find  a  prelate  scoundrel  enough  to  consecrate  thee  ?" 

"  I  have  one  here,"  said  Dubois,  pointing  to  a  Jesuit  prelate  who  was 
ready  to  perform  the  sacrilegious  deed.  Dubois  had  promised  Rohan  that  if 
he  would  consecrate  him  he  would  bring  back  the  favor  of  the  court  to  the 
Jesuit  party.  One  of  the  mistresses  of  the  regent  had  been  won  over  by 
Dubois,  and  the  bloated  debauchee  was  consecrated  as  Archbishop  of  Cam- 
bray. Dubois  was  now  in  the  line  of  preferment,  lie  soon  laid  aside  his 
mitre  for  a  cardinal's  hat,  and  in  1722  was  appointed  prime  minister.  The 
darkness  of  the  Middle  Ages  had  passed  away,  and  these  scandals  were  per- 
petrated in  the  full  light  of  the  18th  century.  The  people  looked  on  with 
murmurs  of  contempt  and  indignation.  It  was  too  much  to  ask,  to  demand 
reverence  for  such  a  church.f 

The  infamous  Jesuit,  Lavergnc  dc  Tressan,  Bishop  of  Nantes,  who  conse- 
crated Dubois,  revived  from  their  slumber  the  most  severe  ordinances  of 

*  History  of  French  1107011111011,  by  E.  E.  Crowe,  vol.  ii.,  p.  150. — Enc.  Am. 

t  The  Duke  of  St.  Simon,  who  wns  one  of  the  council  of  tlie  reponi y,  in  his  ndmirnhle  mem- 
oirs, pivcs  the  following  sketch  of  Duhoi.s:  "Duhois  wius  ii  little,  tliin,  nionpre  man,  with  n  i)olc- 
cnt  vi.siipe.  All  tlie  vices,  falsehood,  avarice,  licentiousness,  nniliition,  iinil  tlic  mennost  tlattery 
contended  in  liini  for  tlic  mastery.  He  lied  to  such  n  dcRree  as  to  deny  his  own  actions  when 
taken  in  tlie  fact.  In  spile  of  his  dehauchery  he  was  Very  industrious.  His  wealth  was  immense, 
and  his  rev«'nuc  amounted  to  millions." 


1722.]  THE  REGENCY  AND  LOUIS  XV.  87 

Louis  XIY.  Louis  XY.  was  then  fourteen  years  of  age.  Royal  edicts  were 
issued,  sentencing  to  the  galleys  for  life  any  man  and  to  imprisonment  for 
life  any  woman  who  should  attend  other  worship  than  the  Catholic. 
Preachers  of  Protestantism  were  doomed  to  death ;  and  any  person  who 
harbored  such  a  preacher,  or  who  should  neglect  to  denounce  him,  was  con- 
signed to  the  galleys  or  the  dungeon.  All  children  were  to  be  baptized 
within  twenty-four  hours  of  their  birth  by  the  cnrate  of  the  parish,  and  were 
to  be  placed  under  Catholic  instructors  until  the  age  of  fourteen.  Certifi- 
cates of  Catholicity  were  essential  for  all  offices,  all  academical  degrees,  all 
admissions  into  corporations  of  trade.  This  horrible  outrage  upon  human 
rights  was  received  by  the  clergy  with  transport.  When  we  contemplate 
the  seed  which  the  king  and  the  court  thus  planted,  we  can  not  wonder  at 
the  revolutionary  harvest  which  was  reaped. 

The  Catholic  Church  thus  became  utterly  loathsome  even  to  the  most  de- 
vout Christians.  They  preferred  the  philosophy  of  Montesquieu,  the  athe- 
ism of  Diderot,  the  unbelief  of  Voltaire,  the  sentimentalism  of  Rousseau,  to 
this  merciless  and  bloody  demon,  assuming  the  name  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
and  swaying  a  sceptre  of  despotism  which  was  deluging  France  in  blood  and 
woe.  The  sword  of  persecution  which  had  for  a  time  been  reposing  in  its 
scabbard  was  again  drawn  and  bathed  in  blood.  Many  Protestant  ministers 
were  broken  upon  the  wheel  and  then  beheaded.  Persecution  assumed 
every  form  of  insult  and  cruelty.  Thousands  fled  from  the  realm.  Relig- 
ious assemblies  were  surrounded  by  dragoons,  and  fired  upon  with  the  fe- 
rocity of  savages,  killing  and  maiming  indiscriminately  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren. Enormous  sums  of  money  were,  by  the  lash,  torture,  the  dungeon, 
and  confiscation,  extorted  from  the  Protestants.  Noblemen,  lawyers,  phy- 
sicians, and  rich  merchants  were  most  eagerly  sought. 

The  seizure  of  Protestant  children  was  attended  with  nameless  outrages. 
Soldiers,  sword  in  hand,  headed  by  the  priests,  broke  into  the  houses,  over- 
turned every  thing  in  their  search,  committed  brutal  violence  upon  the 
parents,  and,  reckless  of  their  lamentations  and  despair,  seized  the  terrified 
children,  especially  the  young  girls,  and  forced  them  into  the  convents. 

Fanaticism  so  cruel  was  revolting  to  the  intelligence  and  to  the  general 
conscience  of  the  age.  Maddened  priests  could  easily  goad  on  a  brutal  and 
exasperated  populace  to  any  deeds  of  inhumanity,  but  intelligent  men  of  all 
parties  condemned  such  intolerance.  It  is,  however,  worthy  of  note  that 
few  of  the  philosophers  of  that  day  ventured  to  plead  for  religious  toleration. 
They  generally  hated  Christianity  in  all  its  forms,  and  were  not  at  all  dis- 
posed to  shield  one  sect  from  the  persecutions  of  another.  Voltaire,  how- 
ever, was  an  exception.  He  had  spent  a  year  and  a  half  in  the  Bastille  on 
the  charge  of  having  written  a  libel  against  the  government,  which  libel  he 
did  not  write.  "When  it  was  proved  to  the  court  that  he  did  not  write  the 
libel  he  was  liberated  from  prison  and  banished  from  France.  Several  years 
after  this,  Voltaire,  having  returned  to  France,  offended  a  nobleman,  the 
Chevalier  de  Rohan.  The  chevalier  disdainfully  sent  his  servant  to  chastise 
the  poet.  Voltaire,  enraged  by  the  degradation,  sent  a  challenge  to  De 
Rohan.  For  the  crime  of  challenging  a  noble  he  was  again  thrown  into  the 
Bastille.     After  six  months  he  was  released  and  a^ain  exiled.     Soon  after 


38  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  III. 

his  Lettres  PhUosophiques  were  condemned  by  the  Parliament  to  be  burned, 
and  an  order  was  issued  for  his  arrest.  For  many  years  he  was  compelled 
to  live  in  concealment.  lie  thus  learned  how  to  sympathize  with  the  perse- 
cuted. In  his  masterly  treatise  upon  toleration,  and  in  his  noble  appeals  for 
the  family  of  the  murdered  Protestant,  Jean  Galas,  he  spoke  in  clarion  tones 
which  thrilled  upon  the  ear  of  France.  When  Franklin  in  Paris  called 
upon  Voltaire,  with  his  grandson,  he  said,  "  My  son,  fall  upon  your  knees 
before  this  great  man."  The  aged  poet,  then  over  eighty  years  of  age,  gave 
the  boy  his  blessing,  with  the  characteristic  words,  "  Ood  and  freedom.'''' 
The  philosophy  of  Voltaire  overturned  the  most  despicable  of  despotisms. 
His  want  of  religion  established  another  despotism  equally  intolerable. 

The  miserable  regent  died  in  a  fit  in  the  apartment  of  his  mistress  in  1723. 
The  young  king  was  now  fourteen  years  of  age.  lie  was  a  bashful  boy, 
with  no  thought  but  for  his  own  indulgence.  "When  a  child  he  was  one  day 
looking  from  the  windows  of  the  Tuileries  into  the  garden,  which  was  filled 
with  a  crowd. 

"  Look  there,  my  king,"  said  Villcroi,  his  tutor;  "  all  these  people  belong 
to  you.     All  that  you  see  is  your  property ;  you  are  lord  and  master  of  it." 

Louis  XV.  carried  these  principles  into  vigorous  practice  during  his  long 
reign  of  fifty-nine  years.  When  fifteen  years  of  age  he  married  Maria, 
daughter  of  Stanislaus,  the  exiled  King  of  Poland.  Maria  was  not  beautiful, 
but  through  a  life  of  neglect  and  anguish  she  developed  a  character  of  re- 
markable lovehness  and  of  true  piet3^  There  is  but  little  to  record  of 
France  during  these  inglorious  years  which  is  worthy  of  the  name  of  his- 
tory. The  pen  can  only  narrate  a  shameful  tale  of  puerility,  sin,  and  op- 
pression. Weary  and  languid  with  worn-out  excitements,  the  king  at  one 
time  took  a  sudden  freak  for  worsted-work,  and  the  whole  court  was  thrown 
into  commotion  as  imitative  nobles  and  ecclesiastics  were  busy  in  the  saloons 
of  Versailles  with  wool,  needles,  and  canvas. 

The  king  at  one  of  his  private  suppers  noticed  a  lady,  Madame  de 
Mailly,  whose  vivacity  attracted  him.  Simply  to  torture  the  queen  he  took 
her  for  his  favorite,  and  received  her  into  the  apartment  from  which  he  ex- 
cluded his  meek  and  virtuous  wife.  Maria  could  only  weep  and  look  to 
God  for  solace.  Madame  de  Mailly  had  a  sister,  a  bold,  spirited  girl,  Made- 
moiselle de  Ncsle.  She  came  to  visit  the  court,  and  after  vigorous  eftbrts 
succeeded  in  supplanting  her  sister,  and  took  her  degrading  place.  She  was 
suddenly  cut  off  in  her  sins  by  death ;  but  there  was  another  sister  of  the 
same  notorious  family,  Madame  Tournellc,  who  endeavored  to  solace  the 
king  by  throwing  herself  into  his  arms.  The  king  received  her,  and  she  be- 
came his  acknowledged  favorite,  and  for  some  time  maintained  the  position 
of  sultana  of  the  royal  harem.  AVherever  she  went  a  suite  of  court-ladies 
followed  in  her  train.  All  were  compelled  to  pay  homage  to  the  reigning 
favorite  of  the  day,  for  all  power  was  in  her  hands,  and  she  was  the  dis- 
penser of  rewards  and  punishments.  The  king  conferred  upon  this  guilty 
woman,  who  was  as  cruel  as  she  was  guilty,  the  title  of  Dueliess  of  Chateau- 
roux.  Madame  de  Tcncin,  one  of  the  ladies  of  the  court,  in  a  confidential 
letter  to  Richelieu,  written  at  tliis  time,  sa3-s: 

"Wliat  hai>j)ens  in  liis  kingdom  seems  to  be  no  business  of  the  king's. 


1723.]  THE  EEGENCY  AND  LOUIS  XV.  39 

It  is  even  said  tliat  he  avoids  taking  any  cognizance  of  what  occurs,  aver- 
ring that  it  is  better  to  know  nothing  than  to  learn  unj^leasant  tidings.  Un- 
less Grod  visibly  interferes,  it  is  physically  impossible  that  the  state  should 
not  Ml  to  pieces." 

Even  Madame  Chateauroux,  herself  one  of  the  most  corrupt  members  of 
that  court  of  unparalleled  corruption,  remarked  to  a  friend, 

"  I  could  not  have  believed  all  that  I  now  see.  If  no  remedy  is  adminis- 
tered to  this  state  of  things,  there  will,  sooner  or  later,  be  a  great  over- 
throw."* 

Though  the  Duchess  of  Chateauroux  was  the  reigning  favorite,  she  had 
another  younger  sister  who  was  a  member  of  the  royal  harem.  The  prin- 
cess of  the  blood.  Mademoiselle  Valois,  and  the  Princess  of  Conti  were  also 
in  this  infamous  train.  These  revolting  facts  must  be  stated,  for  they  are 
essential  to  the  understanding  of  the  French  Eevolution.  Up  to  this  time 
the  king,  of  whom  the  people  knew  but  little,  was  regarded  with  affection. 
They  looked  upon  him  as  the  only  barrier  to  protect  them  from  the  nobles. 
Soon  after  this  Madame  Chateauroux  was  taken  sick  and  died  in  remorse, 
crying  bitterly  for  mercy,  and  promising,  if  her  life  could  be  spared,  amend- 
ment and  penance.  She  was  so  detested  by  the  peoj^le  that  an  armed  escort 
conducted  her  remains  to  the  grave  to  shield  them  from  popular  violence. 

The  king,  for  a  time,  was  quite  chagrined  by  the  death  of  this  woman, 
who  had  obtained  a  great  control  over  him.  While  profligacy  and  bound- 
less extravagance  were  thus  rioting  in  the  palace,  bankruptcy  was  ruining 
merchants  and  artisans,  and  misery  reigned  in  the  huts  of  the  peasants. 

A  citizen  of  Paris  by  the  name  of  Poisson  had  a  daughter  of  marvelous 
grace  and  beauty.  Mademoiselle  Poisson  married  a  wealthy  financier,  M. 
Etoilles.  She  then,  conscious  of  her  beauty  and  of  her  unrivaled  powers  of 
fascination,  formed  the  bold  and  guilty  resolve  to  throw  herself  into  the 
arms  of  the  king.  "When  the  king  was  hunting  in  the  forest  of  Senart  she 
placed  herself  in  his  path,  as  if  by  accident,  in  an  open  barouche,  dressed  in 
a  manner  to  shed  the  utmost  possible  lustre  upon  her  charms.  The  volup- 
tuous king  fixed  his  eye  upon  her  and  soon  sent  for  her  to  come  to  the  pal- 
ace of  Versailles.  The  royal  mandate  was  eagerly  obeyed.  She  immedi- 
ately engrossed  the  favor  of  the  king,  was  established  in  the  palace,  and 
henceforth  became  the  great  power  before  which  all  France  was  constrained 
to  bow.  Her  disconsolate  husband,  who  had  loved  her  passionately,  en- 
treated her  to  return  to  him,  promising  to  forgive  every  thing.  Scornfully 
she  refused  to  turn  her  back  upon  the  splendors  of  Versailles.  Keceiving 
from  the  king  as  the  badge  of  her  degradation  the  title  of  Marchioness  of 
Pompadour,  Jeannette  Poisson  was  enthroned  as  the  real  monarch  of  France. 
She  was  a  woman  of  vast  versatility  of  talent,  brilliant  in  conversation,  and 
possessed  unrivaled  powers  of  fascination.  For  twenty  years  she  held  the 
king  in  perfect  subjection  to  her  sway.  She  never  for  one  moment  lost 
sight  of  her  endeavor  to  please  and  to  govern  the  monarch.  "  Sometimes  she 
appeared  before  him  clad  as  a  peasant-girl,  assuming  all  the  simplicity  and 
rustic  grace  of  this  character.  She  took  with  equal  ease  the  appearance  of 
a  languishing  Venus  or  the  proud  beauty  of  a  Diana.     To  these  disguises 

*  Women  of  France,  p.  91. 


40  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ClIAP.  III. 

often  succeeded  the  modest  garb  of  a  nun,  when,  with  affected  humility  and 
downcast  eyes,  she  came  to  meet  the  king." 

Her  power  soon  became  unhmited  and  invincible,  for  her  heart  was  of 
iron,  and  even  her  feminine  hand  could  wield  all  the  terrors  of  court  banish- 
ment, confiscation,  exile,  and  the  Bastille.  It  is  said  that  a  witticism  of  Fred- 
eric II.  of  Prussia,  at  her  expense,  plunged  France  into  all  the  horrors  of  the 
Seven  Years'  "War.  The  most  high-born  ladies  in  the  land  were  her  wait- 
ing-women. Her  steward  was  a  knight  of  the  order  of  St.  Louis.  When 
she  rode  out  in  her  sedan-chair,  the  Chevalier  d'Henin,  a  member  of  one  of 
the  noblest  families  of  the  kingdom,  walked  respectfully  by  her  side,  with 
her  cloak  upon  his  arm,  ready  to  spread  it  over  her  shoulder  whenever  she 
should  alight. 

She  summoned  embas-sadors  before  her,  and  addressed  them  with  the  re- 
gal ice,  assuming  the  style  of  royalty.  She  appointed  bishops  and  generals, 
and  filled  all  the  important  offices  of  Church  and  State  with  those  who  would 
do  her  homage.  She  dismissed  ministers  and  created  cardinals,  declared 
war  and  made  peace.  Voltaire  paid  court  to  her,  and  devoted  his  muse  to 
the  celebration  of  her  beauty  and  her  talents.  Montesquieu,  Diderot,  and 
Quesnay  waited  in  her  antechamber,  imploring  her  patronage.  Those  au- 
thors who  pleased  her  she  pensioned  and  honored ;  those  who  did  not  were 
left  in  poverty  and  neglect.  Even  the  imperial  Maria  Theresa,  seeking  the 
alliance  of  France,  wrote  to  her  with  her  own  hand,  addressing  her  as  her 
"dear  friend  and  cousin."  "Not  only,"  said  Madame  de  Pompadour  one 
day  to  the  Abbe  de  Bernis,  "  not  only  have  I  all  the  nobility  at  my  feet,  but 
even  my  lap-dog  is  weary  of  their  fawnings."  Eousseau,  strong  in  the  idol- 
atry of  the  nation,  refused  to  join  the  worshipers  at  the  shrine  of  Pompa- 
dour. She  dared  not  send  him  to  the  Bastille,  but  vexatiously  exclaimed  "  I 
will  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  that  oivV 

As  Madame  de  Pompadour  found  her  charms  waning,  she  maintained  her 
place  by  ministering  to  the  king's  appetites  in  the  establishment  of  the  most 
infamous  institution  ever  tolerated  in  a  civilized  land.  Lacretelle,  in  his 
History  of  France,  thus  describes  this  abomination : 

"  Louis  XV.,  satiated  with  the  conquests  which  the  court  offered  him,  was 
led  by  a  depraved  imagination  to  form  an  establishment  for  his  pleasures  of 
such  an  infamous  description  that,  after  having  depicted  the  debaucheries  of 
the  regency,  it  is  difficult  to  find  terms  appropriate  to  an  excess  of  this  kind. 
Several  elegant  houses,  built  in  an  inclosure  called  the  Pare  aux  Cer/s,  near 
Versailles,  were  used  for  the  reception  of  beautiful  female  children,  who  there 
awaited  the  pleasure  of  their  master.  Hither  were  brought  young  girls,  sold 
by  their  parents,  and  sometimes  forced  from  them.  It  was  skillfully  and  pa- 
tiently fostered  by  those  who  ministered  to  the  profligacy  of  Louis ;  whole 
years  were  occupied  in  the  debauchery  of  girls  not  yet  in  a  marriageable  age, 
and  in  imdermining  the  principles  of  modesty  and  fidelity  in  young  women." 

When  some  one  spoke  to  Madame  de  Pompadour  of  this  establishment, 
she  replied, 

"  It  is  the  king's  heart  that  T  wish  to  possess,  and  none  of  these  little  un- 
educated girls  will  deprive  me  of  that." 

If  the  king  in  his  rides  chanced  to  see  a  pretty  child  who  gave  promise  of 


1745.]     *  THE  REGENCY  AND  LOUIS  XV.  41 

unusual  beauty,  he  sent  Lis  servants  to  take  lier  from  lier  parents  to  be  trained 
in  bis  barem.  The  parents  bad  tbeir  cboice  to  submit  quietly  at  bome,  or  to 
submit  m  tbe  dungeons  of  tbe  Bastille.  One  incident,  related  by  Soulavie,  in 
his  "Anecdotes  of  tbe  Eeign  of  Louis  XV.,"  illustrates  tbe  mode  of  operation : 

"Among  the  young  ladies  of  very  tender  age  with  whom  tbe  king  amused 
himself  during  the  influence  of  Madame  de  Pompadour  or  afterward,  there 
was  also  a  Mademoiselle  Treicelin,  whom  his  majesty  ordered  to  take  tbe 
name  of  Bonneval  the  very  day  she  was  presented  to  him.  The  king  was 
tbe  first  who  perceived  this  child,  when  not  above  nine  years  old,  in  the  care 
of  a  nurse,  in  tbe  garden  of  the  Tuileries,  one  day  when  he  went  in  state  to 
his  good  city  of  Paris ;  and  having  in  the  evening  spoken  of  her  beauty  to 
Le  Bel,  the  servant  applied  to  M.  de  Sartine,  who  traced  her  out  and  bought 
her  of  the  nurse  for  a  few  louis.  She  was  tbe  daughter  of  M.  de  Treicelin,  a 
man  of  quality,  who  could  not  patiently  endure  an  affront  of  this  nature.  He 
was,  however,  compelled  to  be  silent ;  he  was  told  his  child  was  lost,  and  that 
it  would  be  best  for  him  to  submit  to  the  sacrifice  unless  he  wished  to  lose 
his  liberty  also." 

The  expense  of  the  Pare  aux  Cerfs  alone,  according  to  Lacretelle,  amounted 
to  100,000,000  francs— $25,000,000. 

These  were  not  deeds  of  darkness.  They  were  open  as  the  day.  France, 
though  bound  hand  and  foot,  saw  them,  and  exasperation  was  advancing  to 
fury.  An  anonymous  letter  was  sent  to  Louis,  depicting  very  vividly  tbe 
ruinous  state  of  affairs  and  announcing  tbe  inevitable  shock.  Madame  de 
Hausset,  in  her  memoirs,  gives  the  following  synopsis  of  this  letter : 

"  Your  finances  are  in  tbe  greatest  disorder,  and  the  great  majority  of  states 
have  perished  through  this  cause.  Your  ministers  arc  without  capacity. 
Open  war  is  carried  on  against  religion.  The  encyclopedists,  under  pre- 
tense of  enlightening  mankind,  are  sapping  the  foundations  of  Christianity. 
All  the  different  kinds  of  liberty  are  connected.  Tbe  philosophers  and  the 
Protestants  tend  toward  republicanism.  The  philosophers  strike  at  the  root, 
the  others  lop  tbe  branches,  and  their  efforts  will  one  day  lay  the  tree  low. 
Add  to  these  the  economists,  whose  object  is  political  liberty,  as  that  of  oth- 
ers is  liberty  of  worship,  and  tbe  government  may  find  itself  in  twenty  or 
thirty  years  undermined  in  every  direction,  and  it  will  then  fall  with  a  crash. 
Lose  no  time  in  restoring  order  to  tbe  state  of  the  finances.  Embarrassments 
necessitate  fresh  taxes,  which  grind  the  people  and  induce  toward  revolt.  A 
time  will  come,  sire,  when  the  people  will  be  enlightened,  and  that  tmie  is 
probably  near  at  band." 

Tbe  king  read  this  letter  to  Madame  de  Pompadour,  and  then,  turning 
upon  bis  heel,  said, 

"  I  wish  to  hear  no  more  about  it.  Things  will  last  as  they  are  as  long  as 
I  shall." 

On  another  occasion,  Mirabeau  tbe  elder  remarked  in  the  drawing-room  of 
Madame  de  Pompadour, 

"  This  kingdom  is  in  a  deplorable  state.  There  is  neither  national  energy 
nor  money.  It  can  only  be  regenerated  by  a  conquest  like  that  of  China,  or 
by  some  great  internal  convulsion.  But  woe  to  those  who  live  to  see  that. 
The  French  people  do  not  do  things  by  halves," 


42  THE  FRENCH  BEVOIiUTION.  [ChAP.  III. 

Madame  de  Pompadour  herself  was  fully  aware  of  the  catastrophe  which 
was  impending,  but  she  flattered  herself  that  the  storm  would  not  burst  dur- 
ing her  life.  She  often  said,  "  Aprcs  nous  le  deluge" — '^  After  us  comes  the 
deluge." 

The  indications  of  approaching  ruin  were  so  evident  that  they  could  not 
escape  the  notice  of  any  observing  man.  Even  Louis  XV.  himself  was  not 
blind  to  the  tendency  of  afl'airs,  and  only  hoped  to  ward  off  a  revolution 
w^hile  his  day  should  last. 

Lord  Chesterfield  visited  France  in  1753,  twenty  years  before  the  death  of 
Louis  XV.,  and  wrote  as  follows  to  his  son : 

"  Wherever  you  are,  inform  yourself  minutely  of,  and  attend  particularly 
to  the  affairs  of  France.  They  grow  serious,  and,  in  my  opinion,  will  grow 
more  so  every  day.  The  French  nation  reasons  freely,  which  they  never 
did  before,  upon  matters  of  religion  and  government.  In  short,  all  the  symp- 
toms which  I  have  ever  met  with  in  history  previous  to  great  changes  and 
revolutions  now  exist  and  daily  increase  in  France." 

The  great  difficulty  of  raising  money  and  the  outrages  resorted  to  for  the 
accomplishment  of  that  purpose  alarmed  the  courtiers.  One  night,  an  officer 
of  the  government,  sitting  at  the  bedside  of  the  king  conversing  upon  the 
state  of  affairs,  remarked, 

"  You  will  see,  sire,  that  all  this  will  make  it  absolutely  necessary  to  as- 
semble the  States-General." 

The  king  sprang  up  in  his  bed,  and,  seizing  the  courtier  by  his  arm,  ex- 
claimed, 

"  Never  repeat  those  words.  I  am  not  sanguinary ;  but,  had  I  a  brother, 
and  did  he  dare  to  give  me  such  advice,  I  would  sacrifice  him  within  twen- 
ty-four hours  to  the  duration  of  the  monarchy  and  the  tranquillity  of  the 
kingdom." 

It  is  not  strange  that  in  such  a  court  as  this  Christianity  should  have  been 
reviled,  and  that  infidelity  should  have  become  triumi^hant. 

"When  I  was  first  presented  to  his  majesty  Louis  XV.,"  La  Fayette 
writes,  "  I  well  remember  finding  the  eldest  son  of  the  Church,  the  King  of 
France  and  Navarre,  seated  at  a  table  between  a  bishop  and  a  prostitute. 
At  the  same  table  was  seated  an  aged  philosopher,  whose  writings  had  con- 
veyed lustre  upon  the  age  in  which  he  flourished;  one  whose  whole  life 
had  been  spent  in  sapping  the  foundation  of  Christianity  and  undermining 
monarchy.  Yet  was  this  philosopher,  at  that  moment,  the  object  of  honor 
from  monarchs  and  homage  from  courtiers.  A  young  abbd  entered  with 
me,  not  to  be  presented  to  royalty,  but  to  ask  the  benediction  of  this  enemy 
of  the  altar.  The  name  of  this  aged  philosopher  was  Voltaire,  and  that  of 
the  young  abbd  was  Charles  Afaurice  Talleyrand." 

Nearly  all  the  infidel  writers  of  the  day — Voltaire,  Rousseau,  Diderot, 
D'Aleml)ert — were  men  ho])elessly  corrupt  in  morals.  Many  of  them  were 
keen-sighted  enough  distinctly  to  perceive  the  difference  between  Chris- 
tianity and  the  lives  of  debauched  ecclesiastics.  But  most  of  them  hated 
Christianity  and  its  restraints,  and  were  glad  to  avail  themselves  of  the  cor- 
ruptions of  the  Church  that  they  might  bring  tlie  religion  of  Christ  into 
contempt.     But  there  were  not  wanting,  even  then,  men  of  most  sincere 


1764.]  THE  REGENCY  AND  LOUIS  XV.  43 

and  fearless  piety,  wlio  advanced  Christianity  by  their  lives,  and  who  with 
heroism  rebuked  sin  in  high  places. 

The  Bishop  of  Senez  was  called  to  preach  before  the  king.  With  the 
spirit  of  Isaiah  and  Daniel  he  rebuked  the  monarch  for  his  crimes  in  terms 
so  plain,  direct,  and  pungent  as  to  amaze  the  courtiers.  The  king  was 
confounded,  but  God  preserved  his  servant  as  Daniel  was  preserved  in  the 
lions'  den. 

At  length  Madame  de  Pompadour  died,  in  1764,  and  the  execrations  of 
France  followed  her  to  her  burial.  It  was  a  gloomy  day  of  wind  and  rain 
when  the  remains  of  this  wretched  woman  were  borne  from  Versailles  to 
the  tomb.  The  king  had  now  done  with  her,  and  did  not  condescend  to 
follow  her  to  her  burial.  As  the  funeral  procession  left  the  court-yard  of 
the  palace  he  stood  at  a  window  looking  out  into  the  stormy  air,  and 
chuckled  at  his  heartless  witticism  as  he  said,  "  The  marchioness  has  rather 
a  wet  day  to  set  out  on  her  long  journey."  This  remark  is  a  fair  index  of 
the  almost  inconceivable  heartlessness  of  this  contemptible  king. 

Madame  de  Pompadour  breathed  her  last  at  Versailles  in  splendid  mis- 
ery. She  was  fully  conscious  of  the  hatred  of  the  nation,  and  trembled  in 
\aew  of  the  judgment  of  God.  "  My  whole  life,"  said  she,  in  a  despairing 
hour,  "has  been  a  continual  death." 

"  Very  different  indeed,"  beautifully  writes  Julia  Kavanagh,  "  were  the 
declining  years  of  Maria  Lecsinska  and  those  of  the  Marchioness  of  Pompa- 
dour. The  patient  and  pious  queen  laid  her  sufferings  at  the  foot  of  the 
cross.  Insulted  by  her  husband  and  his  mistresses,  neglected  by  the  court- 
iers, deeply  afilicted  by  the  loss  of  her  children,  whom  she  loved  most  ten- 
derly, she  still  found  in  religion  the  courage  necessary  to  support  her  grief, 
and  effectual  consolation  in  the  practice  of  a  boundless  benevolence."* 

The  old  king  was  now  utterly  whelmed  in  the  vortex  of  dissipation; 
character,  and  even  self-respect,  seemed  entirely  lost.  He  looked  around  for 
another  female  to  take  the  place  of  Jeannette  Poisson.  In  one  of  the  low 
haunts  of  Parisian  debauchery,  the  courtiers  of  the  king  found  a  girl  of 
extraordinary  beauty,  calling  herself  Mademoiselle  Lange.  She  had  been 
sewing  in  the  shop  of  a  milliner,  but  was  now  abandoned  to  vice.  She 
was  introduced  as  a  novelty  to  the  voluptuous  monarch,  and  succeeded  in 
fascinating  him.  She  received  the  title  of  Countess  du  Barry,  and  was  im- 
mediately installed  at  Versailles  as  the  acknowledged  favorite  of  the  king. 
Vice  never  rises,  but  always  descends  in  the  scale  of  degradation.  The 
king  had  first  selected  his  favorites  from  the  daughters  of  nobles,  he  then 
received  one  from  the  class  whom  he  affected  to  despise  as  low-born ;  and 
now  a  common  prostitute,  taken  from  the  warehouses  of  infamy  in  Paris, 
uneducated,  and  with  the  manners  of  a  courtesan,  is  presented  to  the  nation 
as  the  confidant  and  the  manager  of  the  despicable  sovereign.  All  the 
high-born  ladies,  accustomed  as  they  were  to  the  corruptions  of  the  court, 
regarded  this  as  an  insult  too  grievous  to  be  borne.  The  nobles,  the  clergy, 
the  philosophers,  and  the  people,  all  joined  in  this  outcry.  But  Madame 
du  Barry,  wielding  the  authority  of  the  king,  was  too  strong  for  them  all. 
She  dismissed  and  banished  from  the  court  the  Duke  of  Choiseul,  the  king's 

*  Women  of  France,  p.  170. 


44  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  III. 

minister,  and  to  his  post  she  raised  one  of  her  own  friends.  She  then,  with 
astounding  boldness,  suppressed  the  Parliaments,  thus  leaving  to  France  not 
even  the  shadow  of  representative  power.  Thus  she  proceeded,  step  by 
step,  removing  enemies  and  supplanting  them  by  friends,  untd  the  most  no- 
ble of  the  land  were  emulous  of  the  honor  of  admission  to  the  saloon  of  this 
worthless  woman. 

It  is  an  appalling  and  a  revolting  fact  that  for  half  a  century  before  the 
revolution  France  was  governed  by  prostitutes.  The  real  sovereign  was  the 
shameless  woman  who,  for  the  time  being,  kept  control  of  the  degraded  and 
sensual  king.  "  The  individual,"  says  De  Tocqueville,  "  who  would  attempt 
to  judge  of  the  government  by  the  men  at  the  head  of  affairs  and  not  by  the 
women  who  swayed  those  men,  would  fall  into  the  same  error  as  he  who 
udges  of  a  machine  by  its  outward  action  and  not  by  its  inward  springs." 

The  king  was  now  so  execrated  that  he  dared  not  pass  through  Paris  in 
going  from  his  palace  at  Versailles  to  Compi(^gne.  Fearing  insult  and  a  re- 
volt of  the  people  if  he  were  seen  in  the  metropolis,  he  had  a  road  construct- 
ed which  would  enable  him  to  avoid  Paris.  As  beautiful  female  children 
were  often  seized  to  replenish  his  seraglio  at  the  Pare  aiix  Cerfs,  the  people 
received  the  impression  that  he  indulged  in  baths  of  children's  blood,  that 
he  might  rejuvenate  his  exhausted  frame.  The  king  had  become  an  object 
of  horror.* 

Such  was  the  state  of  affairs  when  the  guilty  king  was  attacked  by  the 
small-pox,  and  died  at  Versailles  in  1774,  in  the  sixty-fourth  year  of  his  age 
and  the  fifty-ninth  of  his  reign.  Such  in  brief  was  the  career  of  Louis  XV. 
nis  reign  was  the  consummation  of  all  iniquity,  and  rendered  the  Eevolu- 
tion  inevitable.  The  story  of  his  life,  revolting  as  it  is,  must  be  told ;  for 
it  is  essential  to  the  understanding  of  the  results  which  ensued.  The  whirl- 
wind which  was  reaped  was  but  the  legitimate  harvest  of  the  wind  which 
was  sown.  Truly  docs  De  Tocqueville  say,  "  The  Kevolution  will  ever  re- 
main in  darkness  to  those  who  do  not  look  beyond  it.  It  can  only  be  com- 
prehended by  the  light  of  the  ages  which  preceded  it.  "Without  a  clear  view 
of  society  in  the  olden  time,  of  its  laws,  its  faults,  its  prejudices,  its  suffer- 
ings, its  greatness,  it  is  impossible  to  understand  the  conduct  of  the  French 
during  the  sixty  years  which  have  followed  its  fall." 

*  Historical  View  of  the  French  Revolution,  by  J.  Micbelet,  vol.  i.,  p.  4G. 


1750.]  DESPOTISM  AND  ITS  FRUITS.  45 


CHAPTER  lY. 

DESPOTISM   AND   ITS  FRUITS. 

Assumptions  of  the  Aristocracy. — Moliere. — Decay  of  the  Nobility. — Decline  of  the  Feudal  Sys- 
tem.— Difference  between  France  and  the  United  States. — Mortification  of  Men  of  Letters. — 
Voltaire,  Montesquieu,  Rousseau. — Corruption  of  the  Church. — Diderot. — The  Encyclope- 
dists.— Testimony  of  De  Tocqueville. — Frederic  II.  of  Prussia. — Two  Classes  of  Opponents  of 
Christianity. — Enormity  of  Taxation. — Misery  of  the  People. — "Good  old  Times  of  the  Mon- 
archy !" 

Having  given  a  brief  sketcli  of  the  character  of  Louis  XV.,  let  us  now 
contemplate  the  condition  of  France  during  his  long  reign.  It  has  been 
estimated  that  the  privileged  class  in  both  Church  and  State  consisted  of 
but  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand.  It  was  their  doctrine,  enforced  by  the 
most  rigorous  practice,  that  the  remaining  twenty-five  millions,  of  France 
were  created  but  to  administer  to  their  luxury ;  that  this  was  the  function 
which  Providence  intended  them  to  perform.  Every  ofl&ce  which  could  con- 
fer honor  and  emolument  in  the  Church,  the  army,  the  State,  or  the  Court, 
was  filled  by  the  members  of  an  aristocracy  who  looked  with  undisguised 
contempt  upon  all  those  who  were  not  high-born,  however  opulent  or  how- 
ever distinguished  for  talents  and  literary  culture.  Louis  XV.,  surrounded 
by  courtesans  and  debauched  courtiers,  deemed  it  presumption  in  Voltaire 
to  think  of  sitting  at  the  same  table  with  the  king.  "I  can  give  pensions 
to  Voltaire,  Montesquieu,  Fontinelle,  and  Maupertius,"  said  the  king,  "  but 
I  can  not  dine  and  sup  with  these  ixopley^ 

The  courtiers  of  Louis  XIV.  manifested  in  the  most  offensive  manner  the 
mortification  which  they  felt  in  being  obliged  to  receive  Moliere,  the  most 
distinguished  comic  dramatist  of  France,  to  their  table.  No  degree  of 
genius  could  efface  the  ignominy  of  not  being  nobly  born.f  But,  notwith- 
standing the  arrogance  of  the  nobles,  they,  as  a  class,  had  fallen  into  con- 
tempt. All  who  could  support  a  metropolitan  establishment  had  abandoned 
their  chateaux  and  repaired  to  Paris.  The  rural  castle  was  shut  up,  silence 
reigned  in  its  halls,  and  grass  waved  in  its  court-yard.  The  bailiff  only  was 
left  behind  to  wring  the  last  farthing  from  the  starving  tenantry.  Many  of 
the  noble  families  were  in  decay.  Their  poverty  rendered  their  pride  only 
the  more  contemptible.  Several  of  the  provinces  contained  large  numbers 
of  these  impoverished  aristocratic  families,  who  had  gradually  parted  with 
their  lands,  and  who  were  living  in  a  state  of  very  shabby  gentility.  They 
were  too  proud  to  work  and  too  poor  to  live  without  working.  Turgot  tes- 
tifies that  in  the  Province  of  Limousin  there  were  several  thousand  noble 
families,  not  fifteen  of  whom  had  an  income  of  four  thousand  dollars  a  year.:}: 
One  of  the  crown  officers  wrote  in  1750  : 

*  Madame  Campan's  Memoirs  of  Marie  Antoinette,  vol.  i.,  p.  388.  t  Ih. 

X  "  Men  of  rank  sold  their  land  piecemeal  to  the  peasantry,  reserving  nothing  but  seigneur- 
ial  rents,  which  furnished  a  nominal  but  not  a  substantial  competency." — The  Old  Regime,  De 
Tocqueville,  p.  103. 


46  TUE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  IV. 

*'  The  nobility  of  this  section  are  of  very  high  rank,  but  very  poor,  and 
as  proud  as  they  are  poor.  The  contrast  between  their  former  and  their 
present  condition  is  humiliating.  It  is  a  very  good  plan  to  keep  them  poor, 
in  order  that  they  shall  need  our  aid  and  serve  our  purposes.  They  have 
formed  a  society  into  which  no  one  can  obtain  admission  unless  he  can  prove 
four  quarterings.  It  is  not  incorporated  by  letters  patent,  but  it  is  tolerated, 
as  it  meets  but  once  a  year  and  in  the  presence  of  the  intendant.  These  no- 
blemen hear  mass,  after  which  they  return  home,  some  on  their  Eosinantes, 
some  on  foot.     You  will  enjoy  this  comical  assembly." 

In  days  of  feudal  grandeur  the  noble  was  indeed  the  lord  and  master  of 
the  peasantry.  He  was  their  government  and  their  sole  protector  from  vio- 
lence. There  was  then  reason  for  feudal  service.  But  now  the  noble  was 
a  drone.  He  received,  and  yet  gave  nothing,  absolutely  nothing,  in  return. 
The  peasant  despised  as  well  as  hated  him,  and  derisively  called  him  the 
vulture. 

The  feudal  system  is  adapted  only  to  a  state  of  semi-barbarism.  It  can 
no  more  survive  popular  intelligence  than  darkness  can  exist  after  the  rising 
of  the  sun.  "When,  in  the  progress  of  society,  nobles  cease  to  be  useful  and 
become  only  drones ;  when  rich  men,  vulgar  in  character,  can  purchase  titles 
of  nobility,  so  that  the  nobles  cease  to  be  regarded  as  a  peculiar  and  heaven- 
appointed  race ;  when  men  from  the  masses,  unennoblcd,  acquire  opulence, 
education,  and  that  polish  of  manners  which  place  them  on  an  equality 
with  titled  men ;  when  men  of  genius  and  letters,  introduced  into  the  saloons 
of  the  nobles,  discover  their  own  vast  superiority  to  their  ignorant,  frivolous, 
and  yet  haughty  entertainers ;  and  when  institutions  of  literature,  science, 
and  art  create  an  aristocracy  of  scholarship  where  opulence,  refinement,  and 
the  highest  mental  culture  combine  their  charms,  then  an  hereditary  aristoc- 
racy, which  has  no  support  but  its  hereditary  renown,  must  die.  Its  hour 
is  tolled. 

Such  was  the  state  of  France  at  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XY.  It  is 
estimated  that  there  were  in  France  at  that  time  five  hundred  thousand  well- 
informed  citizens,*  This  fact  explains  both  the  outbreak  of  the  Eevolution 
and  its  failure.  They  were  too  many  to  submit  to  the  arrogance  of  the  no- 
bles ;  hence  the  insurrection.  They  were  too  few  to  guide  and  control  the 
infuriated  masses  when  the  pressure  was  taken  from  them,  and  hence  the 
reign  of  terror,  the  anarchy  and  blood.  The  United  States,  wnth  a  popu- 
lation about  the  same  as  that  of  France  in  the  morning  of  her  Eevolution, 
has  four  or  five  millions  of  intelligent  and  well-educated  men.  These  men 
support  our  institutions.  But  for  them,  the  republic  would  be  swept  away 
like  chaff  before  the  wind. 

As  we  h:ivc  before  said,  men  of  letters  wxre  patronized  by  the  king  and 
the  court,  but  it  was  a  patronage  which  seemed  almost  an  insult  to  ever\' 
honoral)lc  mind.  The  haughty  duke  would  look  down  condescendingly,  and 
even  admiring]}^,  upon  the  distinguished  schohir,  and  w^ould  admit  him  into 
his  saloon  as  a  curiosity.  High-born  ladies  would  smile  upon  him,  and  would 
condescend  to  take  his  arm  and  listen  to  his  remarks.  But  sucli  mingling 
with  society  stung  the  soul  with  a  sense  of  degradation,  and  none  inveighed 
*  Ilistorj-  of  Iho  French  Revolution,  by  M.  Rabnud  do  St.  Eticnnc,  p.  188. 


1750.]  DESPOTISM  AND  ITS  FRUITS.  47 

with  greater  bitterness  against  aristocratic  assumption  than  those  men  of  gen- 
ius who  had  been  most  freely  admitted  into  the  halls  of  the  great.  They 
were  thus  exasperated  to  inquire  into  the  origin  of  ranks,  and  their  works 
were  filled  with  eulogiums  of  equality  and  fraternity. 

It  was  this  social  degradation  which  was  one  of  the  strongest  incentives  to 
revolution.  This  united  all  the  industrial  classes  in  France,  all  who  had  at- 
tained wealth,  and  all  men  of  intellectual  eminence,  in  the  cry  for  reform. 
Equality  of  rights  was  the  great  demand  thus  forced  from  the  heart  of  the 
nation.    Fraternitij  became  the  watch- word  of  the  roused  and  rising  masses.* 

Thought  was  the  great  emancipator.  Men  of  genius  were  the  Titans  who 
uphove  the  mountains  of  prejudice  and  oppression.  They  simplified  political 
economy,  and  made  it  intelhgible  to  the  popular  mind.  Voltaire  assailed 
with  keenest  sarcasm  and  the  most  piercing  invectives  the  corruptions  of  the 
Church,  unjustly,  and  most  calamitously  for  the  interests  of  France,  represent- 
ing those  corruptions  as  Christianity  itself.  Montesquieu  popularized  and 
spread  before  the  nation  those  views  of  national  policy  which  might  render 
a  people  prosperous  and  happy ;  and  Eousseau,  with  a  seductive  eloquence 
which  the  world  has  never  seen  surpassed,  excited  every  glowing  imagina- 
tion with  dreams  of  fascinating  but  unattainable  perfection.  Nearly  all  the 
revolutionary  writers  represented  religion  not  merely  as  a  useless  superstition, 
but  as  one  of  the  worst  scourges  of  the  state.  Thus  they  took  from  the  human 
heart  the  influence  which  alone  can  restrain  passion  and  humanize  the  soul. 

They  represented  man  but  as  a  lamb,  meek  and  innocent,  dumb  before  his 
shearers,  and  seeking  only  to  live  harmlessly  and  happily  in  the  outflowings 
of  universal  benevolence  and  love.  This  lamb-like  man  needed  no  more  re- 
ligion than  does  the  butterfly  or  the  robin.  He  was  to  live  his  joyous  day, 
unrestrained  by  customs,  or  laws,  or  thoughts  of  the  future,  and  then  was  to 
pass  away  like  the  lily  or  the  rose,  having  fulfilled  his  function.  Death  an 
eternal  sleep,  was  the  corner-stone  of  their  shallow  and  degrading  philosophy. 
The  advocates  of  this  sentimentalism  were  amazed  when  they  found  the 
masses,  brutalized  by  ignorance  and  ages  of  oppression,  and  having  been 
taught  that  there  was  no  God  before  whom  they  were  to  stand  in  judgment, 
come  forth  into  the  arena  of  the  nations,  not  as  lambs,  but  as  wolves,  thirsting 
for  blood  and  reckless  in  devastation.  Libertines  in  France  are  still  infidels, 
but  they  have  seen  the  effect  of  their  doctrines,  and  no  longer  dare  to  pro- 
claim them.  "  Where  is  the  Frenchman  of  the  present  day,"  says  De  Tocque- 
ville,  "  who  would  write  such  books  as  those  of  Diderot  or  Helvetius?"f 

Unfortunately,  fatally  for  the  liberties  of  France,  the  leading  writers  were 
infidels.  Mistaking  the  corruptions  of  Christianity  for  Christianity  itself, 
they  assailed  religion  furiously,  and  succeeded  in  eradicating  from  men's 
souls  all  apprehensions  of  responsibility  to  God.  Nothing  could  more  effect- 
ually brutalize  and  demonize  the  soul  of  man.     And  yet  the  Papal  Church, 

*  "A  lord,"  writes  Montesqnien,  bitterly,  "is  a  man  who  sees  the  king,  speaks  to  the  minis- 
ter, has  ancestors,  debts,  and  pensions." 

t  The  Old  Regime,  by  De  Tocqiieville,  p.  18. 

"  It  is  a  singularity  worth  remarking  that  the  Gospel  is  nothing  but  a  declaration  of  rights. 
Its  mysteries  were  a  long  time  hidden,  because  they  attacked  the  priests  and  the  great." — M.  Ra- 
baud  de  St.  Etienne,  p.  174. 


48  THE  FKENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.1V. 

as  a  towering  hierarchy,  had  become  so  corrupt,  such  an  instrument  of  op- 
jjression,  and  such  a  support  of  despotism,  that  no  reform  could  have  been 
accompHshcd  but  by  its  overthrow.*  It  was  the  monarch's  right  arm  of 
strength ;  it  was  the  rampart  which  was  first  to  be  battered  down. 

The  Church  had  no  word  of  censure  for  vice  in  high  places.  It  spread  its 
shield  before  the  most  enormous  abuses,  and,  by  its  inquisitorial  censorship 
of  the  press,  protected  the  most  execrable  institutions.  The  Church,  ener- 
vated by  wealth  and  luxurious  indulgence,  had  also  become  so  decrepit  as 
to  invite  attack.  No  man  could  summon  sufficient  effrontery  to  attempt  her 
defense.  The  only  reply  which  bloated  and  debauched  ecclesiastics  could 
make  to  their  assailants  was  persecution  and  the  dungeon.  There  were  a 
few  truly  pious  men  in  the  Church ;  they  did,  however,  but  exhibit  in  clearer 
contrast  the  general  corruption  with  which  they  were  surrounded. 

Diderot,  though  educated  by  the  Jesuits — perhaps  because  he  was  educated 
by  the  Jesuits — commenced  his  career  by  an  attack  upon  Christianity  in  his 
Pensees  Philosojjhiques.  He  was  sent  to  prison,  and  his  book  burned  by  the 
public  executioner.  Still,  multitudes  read  and  so  warmly  applauded  that  he 
was  incited  to  form  the  plan  of  the  celebrated  Encyclopedia  which  was  to 
contain  a  summary  of  all  human  knowledge.  In  this  grand  enterprise  he 
allied  with  him  the  ablest  scholars  and  writers  of  the  day — Mably,  Condil- 
lac,  Mercier,  Eaynal,  Buffon,  Ilelvetius,  D'Alembert,  and  others.  Nearly  all 
these  men,  despising  the  Church,  were  unbelievers  in  Christianity.  They 
consequently  availed  themselves  of  every  opportunity  to  assail  religion.  The 
court,  alarmed,  laid  a  prohibition  upon  the  work,  but  did  not  dare  to  punish 
the  writers,  as  they  were  too  numerous  and  powerful.  Thus  infidelity  soon 
became  a  fashion.  Notwithstanding  the  prohibition,  the  work  was  soon  re- 
sumed, and  became  one  of  the  most  powerful  agents  in  ushering  in  the  Rov- 
olution. 

"  Christianity  was  hated  by  these  philosophers,"  writes  De  Tocqueville, 
"  less  as  a  religious  doctrine  than  as  a  political  institution ;  not  because  the 
ecclesiastics  assumed  to  regulate  the  concerns  of  the  other  world,  but  because 
they  were  landlords,  seigneurs,  tithe-holders,  administrators  in  this ;  not  be- 
cause the  Church  could  not  find  a  place  in  the  new  society  which  was  being 
established,  but  because  she  then  occupied  a  place  of  honor,  privilege,  and 
might  in  the  society  which  was  to  be  overthrown." 

Christianity  is  the  corner-stone  of  a  true  democracy.  It  is  the  unrelenting 
foe  of  despotism,  and  therefore  despotism  has  invariably  urged  its  most  un- 
relenting warflire  against  the  Bible.  When  papacy  became  the  great  spirit- 
ual despotism  which  darkened  the  world,  the  Bible  was  the  book  which  it 
hated  and  feared  above  all  others.  With  caution  this  corrupt  hierarchy 
selected  a  few  passages  ujion  submission  and  obedience,  which  it  allowed  to 
be  read  to  the  peo])lo,  while  the  majestic  principles  of  fraternity,  upon  which 
its  whol(^  moral  code  is  reared,  were  vigilantly  excluded  from  the  })ublic 
mind.  The  peasant  detected  with  a  Bible  was  deemed  as  guilty  as  if  caught 
with  the  tools  of  a  burglar  or  the  dies  of  a  counterfeiter. 

*  "Slmll  wc  8ny,  then,  Woe  to  Pliilosophism  that  it  destroyed  RpliRion,  what  if  onlli'd  'oxtin- 
puifliiriK  the  nboniinntion' — ermsrr  tin/awe.  f  Wfie  rntlier  to  those  that  made  tlie  Holy  an  abom- 
iuution  and  extinguiHhahle." — Carlyle,  French  Revolution,  i.,  5G. 


1750.]  DESPOTISM  AND  ITS  FRUITS.  49 

It  was  impossible,  however,  to  conceal  the  fact  that  the  Bible  was  the  ad- 
vocate of  purity  of  heart  and  life.  Its  teachings  created  a  sense  of  guilt  in 
the  human  soul  which  could  not  be  effaced.  Corrupt  men  were  consequent- 
ly eager  to  reject  the  Bible,  that  they  might  appease  reproachful  conscience. 
Frederick  II.,  of  Prussia,  an  atheist  and  a  despiser  of  mankind,  became  the 
friend  and  patron  of  Voltaire  in  his  envenomed  assaults  upon  Christianity. 
Louis  XV.,  anxious  to  maintain  friendly  political  relations  with  Prussia,  hesi- 
tated to  persecute  the  recognized  friend  of  the  Prussian  king.  The  courtiers, 
generally  with  joy,  listened  to  those  teachings  of  unbelief  which  reheved 
them  from  the  restraints  of  Christian  morality.  Thus  Christianity  had  two 
classes  of  vigorous  assailants.  The  first  were  those  who  knew  not  how  to 
discriminate  between  Christianity  and  its  corruptions.  They  considered 
Christianity  and  the  Papal  Church  as  one,  and  endeavored  to  batter  the 
hateful  structure  down  as  a  bastille  of  woe.  Another  class  understood 
Christianity  as  a  system  frowning  upon  all  impurity,  and  pressing  ever 
upon  the  mind  a  final  judgment.  They  were  restive  under  its  restraints, 
and  labored  for  its  overthrow  that  guilt  might  find  repose  in  unbelief 

Astonishment  is  often  expressed  at  the  blindness  with  which  the  upper 
classes  of  the  Old  Eegime  allowed  their  institutions  to  be  assailed.  "  But 
where,"  asks  De  Tocqueville,  "could  they  have  learned  better.  Euling 
classes  can  no  more  acquire  a  knowledge  of  the  dangers  they  have  to  avoid, 
without  free  institutions,  than  their  inferiors  can  discern  the  rights  they 
ought  to  preserve  in  the  same  circumstances."* 

The  measureless  extravagance  of  the  court  had  plunged  the  nation  into  a 
state  of  inextricable  pecuniary  embarrassment.  The  whole  burden  of  the 
taxes,  in  myriad  forms,  for  the  support  of  the  throne  in  Oriental  luxury,  for 
the  support  of  the  nobles,  who  were  perhaps  the  most  profligate  race  of  men 
the  world  has  ever  known ;  for  the  support  of  the  Church,  whose  towering 
ecclesiastics,  performing  no  useful  functions,  did  not  even  affect  the  con- 
cealment of  their  vices,  and  who  often  vied  with  the  monarch  himself  in 
haughtiness  and  grandeur ;  for  the  support  of  the  army,  ever  engaged  in 
extravagant  wars,  and  employed  to  keep  the  people  in  servitude — all  these 
taxes  so  enormous  as  to  sink  the  mass  of  the  people  in  the  lowest  state  of 
poverty,  debasement,  and  misery,  fell  upon  the  unprivileged  class  alone. 

Taxes  ran  into  every  thing.  The  minister  who  could  invent  a  new  tax 
was  applauded  as  a  man  of  genius.  All  the  offices  of  the  magistracy  were 
sold.  Judges  would  pay  an  enormous  sum  for  their  office,  and  remunerate 
themselves  a  hundred-fold  by  selling  their  decisions.  Thus  justice  became 
a  farce.     Titles  of  nobility  were  sold,  which,  introducing  the  purchaser  into 

*  Old  Eegime,  p.  175. 

Count  Segur,  a  peer  of  France,  in  his  Memoirs,  has  very  frankly  described  the  feelings  with 
which  he  and  the  young  nobles  who  were  his  companions  regarded  the  writings  of  the  philosojihers  : 

"We  felt  disposed  to  adopt  with  enthusiasm  the  philosophical  doctrines  professed  by  literary 
men,  remarkable  for  their  boldness  and  their  wit.  Voltaire  seduced  our  imagination.  Eousseau 
touched  our  hearts.  We  felt  a  secret  pleasure  in  seeing  that  their  attacks  were  directed  against 
an  old  fabric  which  presented  to  us  a  Gothic  and  ridiculous  appearance.  We  were  pleased  with 
this  petty  war,  although  it  was  undermining  our  own  ranks  and  privileges  and  the  remains  of 
our  ancient  power.  But  we  felt  not  these  attacks  personally.  It  was,  as  yet,  but  a  war  of 
words  and  paper,  which  did  not  appear  to  us  to  threaten  the  superiority  of  existence  which  we 
enjoyed,  consolidated  as  we  thought  it  by  a  possession  of  manv  centuries." 

D 


50  THE  FKEXCII  liEVOLUTlON.  [ChAP.  IV, 

the  ranks  of  the  privileged  class,  threw  the  heavier  burden  upon  the  un- 
privileged. All  the  trades  and  professions  were  put  up  for  sale.  Even  the 
humble  callings  of  making  wigs,  of  weighing  coal,  of  selling  pork,  were  es- 
teemed privileges,  and  were  sold  at  a  high  price.  There  was  hardly  any 
thing  which  a  man  could  do,  which  he  was  not  compelled  to  buy  the  priv- 
ilege of  doing.  A  person  who  undertook  to  count  the  number  of  these  of- 
fices or  trades  for  which  a  license  was  sold,  growing  weary  of  his  task,  esti- 
mated them  at  over  three  hundred  thousand.* 

An  army  of  two  hundred  thousand  tax-gatherers  devoured  every  thing. 
To  extort  substance  from  the  starving  people  the  most  cruel  expedients  were 
adopted.  All  the  energies  of  galleys,  gibbets,  dungeons,  and  racks  were  call- 
ed into  requisition.  When  the  corn  was  all  absorbed,  the  cattle  were  taken. 
The  ground,  exhausted  for 'want  of  manure,  became  sterile.  Men,  women, 
and  children  yoked  themselves  to  the  plow.  Deserts  extended,  the  pop- 
ulation died  off,  and  beautiful  France  was  becoming  but  a  place  of  graves. 

The  people  thus  taxed  owned  but  one  third  of  the  soil,  the  clergy  and  the 
nobles  owning  the  other  two  thirds.  From  this  one  third  the  people  paid 
taxes  and  feudal  service  to  the  nobles,  tithes  to  the  clergy,  and  imposts  to 
the  king.  They  enjoyed  no  political  rights,  could  take  no  share  in  the  ad- 
ministration, and  were  ineligible  to  any  post  of  honor  or  profit.  No  man 
could  obtain  an  office  in  the  army  unless  he  brought  a  certificate,  signed  by 
four  nobles,  that  he  was  of  noble  blood. 

The  imposition  of  the  tax  was  entirely  arbitrary.  Ko  man  could  tell  one 
year  what  his  tax  would  be  the  next.  There  was  no  principle  in  the  assess- 
ment except  to  extort  as  much  as  possible.  The  tax-gatherers  would  be 
sent  into  a  district  to  collect  one  year  one  million  of  francs,  perhaps  the  next 
year  it  would  be  two  millions.  No  language  can  describe  the  dismay  in  the 
humble  homes  of  the  peasants  when  these  cormorants,  armed  with  despotic 
power,  darkened  their  doors.  The  seed-corn  was  taken,  the  cow  was  driven 
off,  the  pig  was  taken  from  the  pen.  Mothers  plead  with  tears  that  food 
might  be  left  for  their  children,  but  the  sheriff,  inured  to  scenes  of  misery, 
had  a  heart  of  rock.  He  always  went  surrounded  by  a  band  of  bailifls  to 
protect  him  from  violence.  Fearful  was  the  vengeance  he  could  wreak  upon 
any  one  who  displeased  him. 

The  peasant,  to  avoid  exorbitant  taxation,  assumed  the  garb  of  poverty, 
dressed  his  children  in  rags,  and  carefully  jiromoted  the  ruin  and  dihipida- 
tion  of  his  dwelling.  "Fear,"  writes  de  Tocqueville,  "often  made  the  col- 
lector pitiless.  In  some  parishes  he  did  not  show  his  fiice  without  a  band 
of  bailiffs  and  followers  at  his  back.  *  Unless  he  is  sustained  by  bailiffs,' 
writes  an  intendant  in  1764,  '  the  taxables  will  not  pay.  At  Yillefranche 
alone  six  hundred  bailiffs  and  followers  are  always  kept  on  foot.'  "f 

Indeed,  the  government  seemed  to  desire  to  keep  tlie  people  poor.  Sav- 
ages will  lop  off  the  leg  or  the  arm  of  a  prisoner  that  he  may  be  more  help- 
lessly in  tlieir  power.  Thus  those  desjiotic  kings  would  desolate  their  realms 
with  taxation,  and  would  excite  wars  which  would  exhaust  energy  and  par- 

♦  History  of  thn  Rovolufinn  of  Frnnrp,  by  M.  Rabaud  dc  St.  Elionnp. 

t  For  appalling  proof  of  tbc  sufVi-rinp*  of  tbc  tnx-pnycra,  turn  to  the  pages  of  Michclct,  of  Dc 
Tocqueville,  of  any  writer  upon  tlic  Old  lUijiuie. 


1750.]  DESPOTISM  AND  ITS  FRUITS.  51 

alyze  industry,  that  the  people  thus  impoverished  and  kept  in  ignorance 
might  bow  more  submissively  to  the  yoke.  The  wars  which  in  endless  mo- 
notony are  inscribed  upon  the  monuments  of  history  were  mostly  waged  by 
princes  to  engross  the  attention  of  their  subjects.  When  a  despot  sees  that 
public  attention  is  directed,  or  is  likely  to  be  directed,  to  any  of  his  oppres- 
sive acts,  he  immediately  embarks  in  some  war,  to  divert  the  thoughts  of 
the  nation.  This  is  the  unvarying  resource  of  despotism.  After  a  few 
hundred  thousand  of  the  people  have  been  slaughtered,  and  millions  of 
money  squandered  in  the  senseless  war,  peace  is  then  made.  But  peace 
brings  but  little  repose  to  the  people.  They  must  now  toil  and  starve  that 
they  may  raise  money  to  pay  for  the  expenses  of  the  war.  Such,  in  gener- 
al, has  been  the  history  of  Europe  for  a  thousand  years.  Despots  are  will- 
ing that  billows  of  blood  should  surge  over  the  land,  that  the  cries  of  the 
oppressed  may  thus  be  drowned. 

So  excessive  was  the  burden  of  taxation,  that  it  has  been  estimated  by  a 
very  accurate  computation  that,  if  the  produce  of  an  acre  of  land  amounted 
to  sixteen  dollars,  the  king  took  ten,  the  duke,  as  proprietor,  five,  leaving 
one  for  the  cultivator.*  Thus,  if  we  suppose  a  peasant  with  his  wife  and 
children  to  have  cultivated  forty  acres  of  land,  the  proceeds  of  which,  at 
sixteen  dollars  per  acre,  amounted  to  six  hundred  and  forty  dollars,  the  king 
and  the  duke  and  the  Church  took  six  hundred  of  this,  leaving  but  forty 
dollars  for  the  support  of  the  laborers. 

Let  us  suppose  a  township  in  the  United  States  containing  twenty  square 
miles,  with  five  thousand  inhabitants.  Nearly  all  these  are  cultivators  of 
the  soil,  and  so  robbed  by  taxes  that  they  can  only  live  in  mud  hovels  and 
upon  the  coarsest  food.  Clothed  in  rags,  they  toil  in  the  fields  with  their 
bareheaded  and  barefooted  wives  and  daughters.  The  huts  of  these  farm- 
ers are  huddled  together  in  a  miserable  dirty  village.  In  the  village  there 
are  a  few  shop-keepers,  who  have  acquired  a  little  property,  and  have  be- 
come somewhat  intelligent.  There  is  also  a  physician,  and  a  surgeon,  and  a 
poor,  dispirited,  half-starved  parish  priest.  Upon  one  of  the  eminences  of 
the  town  there  is  a  lordly  castle  of  stone,  with  its  turrets  and  towers,  its  park 
and  fish-pond.  This  massive  structure  belongs  to  the  duke.  Weary  of  the 
solitude  of  the  country,  he  has  withdrawn  from  the  castle,  and  is  living  with 
his  family  in  the  metropolis,  indulging  in  all  its  expensive  dissipations.  His 
purse  can  only  be  replenished  by  the  money  which  he  can  extort  from  the 
cultivators  of  the  land  who  surround  his  castle ;  and  his  expenses  are  so 
enormous  that  he  is  ever  harassed  by  an  exhausted  purse. 

For  a  few  weeks  in  the  summer  he  comes  down  to  his  castle,  from  the 
metropolis,  with  his  city  companions,  to  engage  in  rural  sports.  Wild  boars, 
deer,  rabbits,  and  partridges  abound  in  his  park.  The  boars  and  the  deer 
range  the  fields  of  the  farmers,  trampling  down  and  devouring  their  crops ; 
but  the  farmer  must  not  harm  them,  lest  he  incur  the  terrible  displeasure 
of  the  duke.  The  rabbits  and  the  partridges  infest  the  fields  of  grain ;  but 
the  duke  has  issued  a  special  injunction  that  the  weeds  even  must  not  be 
disturbed,  lest  the  brooding  partridges  should  be  frightened  away,  to  the  in- 
jury of  his  summer  shooting. 

*  Arthur  Young,  vol.  i.,  p.  574  ;  Marshall's  Travels,  vol.  iv.,  p.  322. 


52  THE  FKENCU  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  IV. 

Perhaps  one  half  of  the  land  in  the  township  belongs  to  the  duke,  and 
the  farmers  are  mere  tenants  at  will.  During  past  ages,  about  half  of  the 
land  has  been  sold  and  is  owned  by  those  who  till  it.  But  even  they  have 
to  pay  a  heavy  ground-rent  annually  to  the  duke  for  the  land  which  the}' 
have  bought.  If  a  farmer  wishes  to  purchase  a  few  acres  from  his  neighbor, 
he  must  first  pay  a  sum  to  the  duke  for  jDcrmission  to  make  the  purchase. 
For  three  or  four  days  in  the  week  the  farmer  is  compelled,  as  feudal  serv- 
ice, to  work  in  the  fields  of  the  duke,  without  remuneration.  When  he 
has  gathered  in  the  harvest  on  his  own  land,  a  large  portion  of  it  he  must 
cart  to  the  granaries  of  the  duke  as  a  tax.  If  he  has  any  grain  to  be 
ground,  or  grapes  to  press,  or  bread  to  bake,  he  must  go  to  the  mill,  the 
wine-press,  and  the  oven  of  the  duke,  and  pay  whatever  toll  he  may  see  fit 
to  extort.  Often  even  the  use  of  hand-mills  was  prohibited,  and  the  peasant 
had  to  purchase  the  privilege  of  bruising  his  grain  between  two  stones.  He 
could  not  even  dip  a  bowl  of  water  from  the  sea,  and  allow  it  to  evaporate 
to  get  some  salt,  lest  he  should  interfere  with  the  monopoly  of  the  king. 
If  he  wishes  to  take  any  of  his  produce  to  market,  he  must  pay  the  duke 
for  permission  to  travel  on  the  highway.  Thus  robbed  under  the  name  of 
custom  and  law,  the  farmer  toils  joylessly  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave, 
with  barely  sufficient  food  and  shelter  to  keep  him  in  respectable  working 
order ;  and  when  he  dies,  he  leaves  his  children  to  the  same  miserable  doom. 
Such  was  the  condition  of  the  great  mass  of  the  French  people  during  the 
long  reign  of  Louis  XV. 

This  intolerable  bondage  spread  all  through  the  minutios  of  social  life. 
It  was,  of  course,  impossible  but  that  the  masses  of  the  people  should  be  in 
the  lowest  state  of  ignorance  and  indigence.  Their  huts,  destitute  of  all  the 
necessities  of  civilized  life,  were  dark  and  comfortless,  and  even  the  merri- 
ment with  which  they  endeavored  at  times  to  beguile  their  misery  was  heart- 
less, spasmodic,  and  melancholy.* 

In  the  year  1785,  Thomas  Jefferson  wrote  from  Paris  to  Mrs.  Trist,  of 
Philadelphia,  "  Of  twenty  millions  of  people  supposed  to  be  in  France,  I 
am  of  opinion  that  there  are  nineteen  milUons  more  wretched,  more  accursed 
in  every  circumstance  of  human  existence,  than  the  most  conspicuously 
wretched  individual  of  the  whole  United  States."f 

Again  he  writes,  in  the  same  3'ear,  to  M.  Bellini,  a  Florentine  gentleman 
who  was  professor  in  William  and  Mary  College,  "  I  find  the  general  state 
of  humanity  here  most  deplorable.  The  truth  of  Voltaire's  observation  of- 
fers itself  perpetually,  that  every  man  here  must  be  either  the  hammer  or 
the  anvil." 

*  "Care  must  I)C  taken  not  to  misunderstand  the  pnycty  which  the  French  have  often  exhib- 
ited in  the  preatest  afliiction.  It  is  a  mere  attcnii)t  to  divert  the  mind  from  the  contcmi)latiou 
of  niihfortime  wliicii  seems  incvital)lc." — The  Old  Jii'ffime,  by  Dc  TocqucvUk,  \>-  107. 

*  Life  of  Jeflerson,  by  Henry  T.  Knndall,  vol.  i.,  p.  432. 


1760.]  THE  BASTILLE.  53 


CHAPTER  y. 

THE   BASTILLE. 

Absolute  Power  of  the  King. — Lettres  de  Cachet. — The  Bastille. — Cardinal  Balue. — Harancom-t. 
— Charles  of  Armanac. — Constant  de  Renville. — Duke  of  Nemours. — Dungeons  of  the  Bas- 
tille.— Oubliettes. — Dessault. — M.  Massat. — M.  Catalan. — Latude. — The  Student. — Apostro- 
phe of  Michelet. 

The  monarchy  was  now  so  absolute  that  the  king,  without  any  regard  to 
law,  had  the  persons  and  the  property  of  all  his  subjects  entirely  at  his  dis- 
posal. He  could  confiscate  any  man's  estate.  He  could  assign  any  man  to 
a  dungeon  for  life  without  trial  and  even  without  accusation.  To  his  petted 
and  profligate  favorites  he  was  accustomed  to  give  sealed  writs,  lettres  de 
cachet^  whose  blanks  they  could  fill  up  with  any  name  they  pleased.  With 
one  of  these  writs  the  courtiers  could  drag  any  man  who  displeased  them  to 
one  of  the  dungeons  of  the  Bastille,  where  no  light  of  the  sun  would  ever 
gladden  his  eyes  again.  Of  these  sealed  writs  we  shall  speak  hereafter. 
They  were  the  most  appalling  instruments  of  torture  despotism  ever  wielded. 

The  Bastille.  At  the  eastern  entrance  of  Paris  stood  this  world-renowned 
fortress  and  prison.  In  gloomy  grandeur  its  eight  towers  darkened  the  air, 
surrounded  by  a  massive  wall  of  stone  nine  feet  thick  and  a  hundred  feet 
high.  The  whole  was  encircled  by  a  ditch  twenty-five  feet  deep  and  one 
hundred  and  twenty  feet  wide.  The  Bastille  was  an  object  exciting  universal 
awe.  No  one  could  ever  pass  beneath  its  shadow  without  thinking  of  the 
sighs  which  ceaselessly  resounded  through  all  its  vaults.  It  was  an  ever- 
present  threat,  the  great  upholder  of  despotic  power,  with  its  menace  ap- 
palling even  the  boldest  heart.  It  is  easy  to  brave  death  from  the  bul- 
let or  the  guillotine ;  but  who  can  brave  the  doom  of  Cardinal  Balue,  who, 
for  eleven  years,  was  confined  in  an  iron  cage,  so  constructed  that  he  could 
find  no  possible  position  for  repose ;  or  the  fate  of  Ilarancourt,  who  passed 
fifteen  years  in  a  cage  within  the  Bastille,  whose  iron  bars  required  in  their 
riveting  the  labors  of  nineteen  men  for  twenty  days  ?  To  be  thus  torn  from 
wife,  children,  and  home,  and  to  be  consigned  for  life  to  the  imearthlj'  woe 
of  such  a  doom  must  terrify  even  the  firmest  soul.  It  is  painful  to  dwell 
upon  these  details,  but  they  must  be  known  in  explanation  of  the  scenes  of 
violence  and  blood  to  which  they  finally  gave  birth. 

Charles  of  Armanac,  for  no  crime  whatever  of  his  own,  but  because  his 
brother  had  offended  Charles  XI.,  was  thrown  into  prison.  For  fourteen 
years  he  lingered  m  the  dungeon,  until  his  reason  was  dethroned  and  his 
spirit  was  bewildered  and  lost  in  the  woes  of  the  maniac.  Constant  de 
Renville,  a  Norman  gentleman,  was  accused,  while  in  exile  in  Holland,  of 
writing  a  satirical  poem  against  France.  For  eleven  years  he  was  immured 
in  one  of  the  most  loathsome  dungeons  of  the  Bastille.  He  appears  to  have 
been  a  man  of  true  piety,  and  upon  his  release  wrote  an  account  of  the  hor- 
rors of  his  prison-house,  which  thrilled  the  ear  of  Europe. 


54  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  Y. 

The  Duke  of  Nemours  was  accused  of  an  intrigue  against  Louis  XI. 
He  was  dragged  from  the  presence  of  his  wife,  exciting  in  her  such  terror 
that  she  fell  into  convulsions  and  died.  After  two  years'  imprisonment  he 
was  condemned  to  be  executed.  A  scaffold  was  erected  with  openings  be- 
neath the  planks,  and  his  three  children  were  placed  beneath  the  planks, 
bareheaded,  clothed  in  white  robes,  and  with  their  hands  bound  behind  their 
backs,  that  the  blood  of  their  beheaded  father  might  drop  upon  them,  and 
that  his  anguish  might  be  increased  by  witnessing  the  agony  of  his  children. 
The  fearful  tragedy  being  over,  these  tender  children,  the  youngest  of  whom 
was  but  five  years  of  age,  were  again  locked  up  in  one  of  the  gloomiest 
vaults  of  the  Bastille,  where  they  remained  for  five  years.  Upon  the  death 
of  Louis  XL  they  were  released.  The  two  eldest,  however,  emaciate  with 
privation  and  woe,  soon  died.     The  youngest  alone  survived. 

Imagination  can  not  conceive  of  an  abode  more  loathsome  than  some  of 
these  horrible  dens.  The  cold  stone  walls,  covered  with  the  mould  of  ages, 
were  ever  dripping  with  water.  The  slimy  floor  swarmed  with  reptiles  and 
all  kinds  of  vermin  who  live  in  darkness  and  mire.  A  narrow  slit  in  the 
wall,  which  was  nine  feet  thick,  admitted  a  few  straggling  rays  of  light,  but 
no  air  to  ventilate  the  apartment  where  corruption  was  festering.  A  little 
straw  upon  the  floor  or  upon  a  plank  supported  by  iron  bars  fixed  in  the 
wall  aflbrded  the  only  place  for  repose.  Ponderous  double  doors,  seven 
inches  thick  and  provided  with  enormous  locks  and  bolts,  shut  the  captive 
as  effectually  from  the  world  and  from  all  knowledge  of  what  was  passing 
in  the  world  as  if  he  were  in  his  grave.  His  arrest  was  frequently  con- 
ducted so  secretly  that  even  his  friends  had  no  knowledge  of  what  had  be- 
come of  him ;  they  could  make  no  inquiries  at  the  gloomy  portals  of  the 
Bastille,  and  the  unhappy  captive  was  left  to  die  unknown  and  forgotten  in 
his  dungeon.  If  by  any  happy  chance  he  was  liberated,  he  was  first  com- 
pelled to  take  an  oath  never  to  reveal  what  he  had  seen,  or  heard,  or  suffer- 
ed within  the  walls  of  the  Bastille. 

Thus  any  person  who  became  obnoxious  to  the  king  or  any  of  his  favor- 
ites was  immediately  transferred  to  these  dungeons  of  despair.  Cardinal 
Richelieu  filled  its  cells  with  the  victims  of  his  tyranny.  The  captive  imme- 
diately received  the  name  of  his  cell,  and  his  real  name  was  never  uttered 
within  the  precincts  of  the  Bastille. 

The  Bastille  was  often  full  to  overflowing,  but  there  were  other  Bastilles 
in  France  sufficiently  capacious  to  meet  all  the  demands  of  the  most  inexo- 
rable tyranny. 

It  is  the  more  necessary  to  dwell  upon  these  details  since  the  Bastille  was 
the  mailed  hand  with  which  aristocratic  usurpation  beat  down  all  resistance 
and  silenced  every  murmur.  The  Bastille,  with  its  massive  walls  and  gloomy 
towers  and  cannon  frowning  from  every  embrasure,  was  the  terrific  threat 
which  held  France  in  subjection.  It  was  the  demon  soul  of  demoniac  des- 
potism. So  awful  was  the  terror  inspired,  that  frequently  the  victim  was 
merely  enjoined  by  one  of  the  warrants  Ix-aring  the  seal  of  the  king  to  go 
himself  to  the  dungeon.  Appalled  and  trembling  in  every  nerve,  he  dared 
not  for  one  moment  disobey.  Hastening  to  the  prison,  he  surrendered  him- 
self to  its  glooms,  dosi)airingly  hoping,  by  prompt  obedience,  to  shorten  the 
•  years  of  his  captivity. 


1750.]  THE  BASTILLE.  55 

There  were  vaults  in  the  Bastille  and  other  prisons  of  France  called  ou- 
bliettes^ into  which  the  poor  victim  was  dropped  and  left  to  die  forgotten. 
These  were  usually  shaped  like  a  bottle,  with  a  narrow  neck  and  expanding 
beneath.  In  one  of  these  tombs  of  massive  stone,  twenty-two  feet  deep  and 
seventeen  or  eighteen  feet  in  diameter,  with  a  narrow  neck  through  which 
the  captive  could  be  thrust  down,  the  inmate  was  left  in  Egyptian  darkness 
amid  the  damp  and  mould  of  ages,  and,  trampling  upon  the  bones  of  those 
who  had  perished  before  him,  to  linger  through  weary  hours  of  starvation 
and  woe  until  death  came  to  his  relief.  Sometimes  he  thus  lingered  for 
years,  food  being  occasionally  thrown  down  to  him. 

There  were  twenty  bastilles  in  France.  In  Paris,  besides  the  Bastille,  there 
were  thirty  prisons,  where  people  might  be  incarcerated  without  sentence, 
trial,  or  even  accusation.  The  convents  were  amply  supplied  with  dun- 
geons. All  these  prisons  were  at  the  disposal  of  the  Jesuits.  They  were 
instruments  of  torture.  The  wretched  victim,  once  consigned  to  those  cells, 
was  enshrouded  by  the  oblivion  of  the  tomb.  The  rich  man  was  robbed  of 
his  wealth  and  taken  there  to  be  forgotten  and  to  die.  Beauty,  whose  vir- 
tue bribes  could  not  destroy,  was  dragged  to  those  apartments  to  minister  to 
the  lust  of  merciless  oppressors.  The  shriek  of  despair,  smothered  by  walls 
of  stone  and  doors  of  iron,  reached  only  the  ear  of  God.* 

During  the  reign  of  Louis  XV.  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  of  these 
lettres  de  cachet  were  issued,  making  an  average  of  two  thousand  five  hundred 
annually.f  The  king  could  not  refuse  a  blank  warrant  to  his  mistress  or  to 
a  courtier.  All  those  who  had  influence  at  court  could  obtain  them.  They 
were  distributed  as  freely  as  in  this  country  members  of  Congress  have  dis- 
tributed their  postage  franks.  St.  Florentin  alone  gave  away  fifty  thousand. 
These  writs  were  often  sold  at  a  great  price.  Any  man  who  could  obtain 
one  had  his  enemy  at  his  disposal.  One  can  hardly  conceive  of  a  more  aw- 
ful despotism.  Such  were  "  the  good  old  times  of  the  monarchy ^^^  as  some  have 
insanely  called  them.  Even  during  the  mild  reign  of  Louis  XVI.  fourteen 
thousand  lettres  de  cachet  were  issued.  Let  us  enter  the  prison  and  contem- 
plate the  doom  of  the  captive. 

A  gentleman  by  the  name  of  Dessault  offended  Eichelieu  by  refusing  to 
execute  one  of  his  atrocious  orders.  At  midnight  a  band  of  soldiers  entered 
his  chamber,  tore  him  from  his  bed,  and  dragged  him  through  the  dark 
streets  to  the  Bastille,  and  there  consigned  him  to  a  living  burial  in  one  of  its 
cold  damp  tombs  of  iron  and  stone.  Here  in  silence  and  solitude,  deprived 
of  all  knowledge  of  his  family,  and  his  family  having  lost  all  trace  of  him, 
he  lingered  eleven  years, 

"  Oh,  who  can  tell  what  days,  what  nights  he  spent 
Of  tideless,  waveless,  sailless,  shoreless  woe  !" 

At  last  his  jailer  ventured  to  inform  him  that  Eichelieu  was  on  a  dying 
bed.  Hoping  that  in  such  an  hour  the  heart  of  the  haughty  cardinal  might 
be  touched  with  sympathy,  he  wrote  to  him  as  follows : 

"  My  lord,  you  are  aware  that  for  eleven  years  you  have  subjected  me  to 
the  endurance  of  a  thousand  deaths  in  the  Bastille — to  sufferings  which 

*  Historical  View  of  French  Revolution,  by  J.  Michelet,  i.,  66. 
f  History  of  the  Bastille,  Chambers'  Miscellany. 


56  TUE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  V. 

would  excite  compassion  if  inflicted  even  upon  the  most  disloyal  subject  of 
the  king.  IIow  much  more  then  should  I  be  pitied,  who  am  doomed  to  per- 
ish here  for  disobeying  an  order,  which,  obeyed,  would  have  sent  me  to  the 
final  judgment  with  blood-stained  hands,  and  would  have  consigned  my  soul 
to  eternal  misery.  Ah !  could  you  but  hear  the  sobs,  the  lamentations,  the 
groans  which  you  extort  from  me,  you  would  quickly  set  me  at  liberty.  In 
the  name  of  the  eternal  God,  who  will  judge  you  as  well  as  me,  I  implore 
you,  my  lord,  to  take  pity  on  my  woe,  and,  if  you  wish  that  God  should 
show  mercy  to  you,  order  my  chains  to  be  broken  before  your  death-hour 
comes.  When  that  hour  arrives  you  will  no  longer  be  able  to  do  me  justice, 
but  will  persecute  me  even  in  your  grave." 

The  iron-hearted  minister  was  unrelenting,  and  died  leaving  his  victim 
still  in  the  dungeon.  There  Dessault  remained  ffty  years  after  the  death  of 
Richelieu.  He  was  at  length  liberated,  after  having  passed  sixty-one  years 
in  a  loathsome  cell  but  a  few  feet  square.  The  mind  stands  aghast  in  the 
contemplation  of  such  woes.  All  this  he  suffered  as  the  punishment  of  his 
virtues.  The  mind  is  appalled  in  contemplating  such  a  doom.  Even  the 
assurance  that  after  death  cometh  the  judgment  affords  but  little  relief.  Mi- 
chlet,  an  unbeliever  in  Christian  revelation,  indignantly  exclaims,  "  though 
a  sworn  enemy  to  barbarous  fictions  about  everlasting  punishment,  I  found 
myself  praying  to  God  to  construct  a  hell  for  tyrants." 

When  we  remember  that  during  a  single  reign  one  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  were  thus  incarcerated ;  that  all  the  petted  and  profligate  favorites 
of  the  king,  male  and  female,  had  these  blank  w^arrants  placed  in  their  hands, 
which  they  could  fill  up  with  any  name  at  their  pleasure ;  that  money  could 
be  thus  extorted,  domestic  virtue  violated,  and  that  every  man  and  every 
family  was  thus  placed  at  the  mercy  of  the  vilest  minions  of  the  court,  we 
can  only  wonder  that  the  volcano  of  popular  indignation  did  not  burst  forth 
more  speedily  and  more  desolatingly.  It  is  true  that  in  many  other  coun- 
tries of  Europe  the  state  of  affairs  was  equally  bad,  if  not  worse.  But  in 
France  wealth  and  intelligence  had  made  great  advances,  while  in  central 
and  northern  Europe  the  enslaved  people  were  so  debased  by  ignorance  that 
they  had  no  consciousness  of  the  rights  of  which  they  were  defrauded. 

The  court  demanded  of  a  rich  man,  M.  Massat,  six  hundred  thousand  li- 
vres  ($120,000).  Stunned  by  the  ruinous  demand,  he  ventured  to  remon- 
strate. He  was  dragged  to  the  Bastille,  where  the  vermin  of  his  dungeon 
could  alone  hear  his  murmurs.  M.  Catalan,  another  man  of  wealth,  after 
experiencing  the  horrors  of  such  an  imprisonment  for  several  months,  was 
glad  to  purchase  his  ransom  for  six  millions  of  livres  ($1,200,000).* 

The  money  tlms  extorted  was  squandered  in  the  most  shameless  profli- 
gacy. The  king  sometimes  expended  two  hundred  thousand  dollars  for  a 
single  night's  entertainment  at  Versailles.  The  terrors  of  the  Bastille  frown- 
ed down  all  remonstrances.  A  "stone  doublet"  was  the  robe  which  the 
courtiers  facetiously  remarked  they  had  prepared  for  murmurers. 

On  the  1st  of  May,  1749,  a  gentleman  of  the  name  of  Latude  was  arrested 
by  one  of  these  litres  dc  cachet,  and  thrown  into  the  Bastille.  lie  was  then 
but  twenty  years  of  age,  and  had  given  oflense  to  Madame  de  Pompadour, 
*  OKI  Rct;ime,  p.  191. 


1774.]  THE  COURT  AND  THE  PARLIAMENT.  57 

by  pretending  that  a  conspiracy  had  been  formed  against  her  life.  For  thirty- 
five  years  he  remained  in  prison  enduring  inconceivable  horrors.  In  1784, 
several  years  after  the  death  of  both  the  mistress  and  her  subject  king,  he 
was  liberated  and  wrote  an  account  of  his  captivity.  It  was  a  tale  of  hor- 
ror which  thrilled  the  ear  of  Europe.  Eloquently,  in  view  of  the  letters  of 
Latude,  Michelet  represents  the  people  as  exclaiming, 

"  Holy,  holy  Eevolution,  how  slowly  dost  thou  come !  I,  who  have  been 
waiting  for  thee  a  thousand  years  in  the  furrows  of  the  Middle  Ages,  what ! 
must  I  wait  still  longer?  Oh,  how  slowly  time  passes  I  Oh,  how  have  I 
counted  the  hours !     Wilt  thou  never  arrive  ?" 

A  young  man,  in  a  Jesuit  College,  in  a  thoughtless  hour,  composed  a  sa- 
tirical Latin  distich,  making  merry  with  the  foibles  of  the  professors  and  of 
the  king.  A  lettre  de  cachet  was  immediately  served  upon  him,  and  for  thirty- 
one  years^  until  youth  and  manhood  were  giving  place  to  old  age,  he  remain- 
ed moaning  in  living  burial  in  one  of  the  dungeons  of  the  Bastille.  One  of 
the  first  acts  of  the  Eevolution  was  to  batter  down  these  execrable  walls  and 
to  plow  up  their  very  foundations. 

In  view  of  the  facts  here  revealed  one  can  not  but  be  amazed  at  the  man- 
ner in  which  many  have  spoken  of  the  French  Revolution,  as  if  it  were 
merely  an  outburst  of  human  depravity.  "  Burke  had  no  idea,"  writes  De 
Tocqueville,  "  of  the  state  in  which  the  monarchy,  he  so  deeply  regretted, 
had  left  us."  Michelet,  glowing  with  the  indignation  which  inflamed  the 
bosoms  of  his  fathers,  exclaims,  "  Our  fathers  shivered  that  Bastille  to  pieces, 
tore  away  its  stones  with  bleeding  hands,  and  flung  them  afar.  Afterward 
they  seized  them  again,  and,  having  hewn  them  into  a  different  form,  in  or- 
der that  they  might  be  trampled  under  foot  by  the  people  forever,  built  with 
them  the  Bridge  of  Revolution."* 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  COURT  AND  THE  PARLIAMENT. 


Death  of  Louis  XV. — Education  of  Louis  XVI. — Maurcpas,  Prime  IVIinister. — Target ;  his 
Expulsion  from  OiBce. — Necker. — Franklin. — Sympathy  with  the  Americans. — La  Fayette. — 
Views  of  the  Court. — Treaty  with  America. — Popularity  of  Voltaire. — Embarrassment  of 
Necker. — Compte  Rendu  au  Roi. — Necker  driven  into  Exile. — Enslavement  of  France. — New 
Extravagance. — Calonne. 

As  the  clock  of  Versailles  tolled  the  hour  of  twelve  at  midnight  of  the 
10th  of  Ma}",  1774,  Louis  XV.,  abandoned  by  all,  alone  in  his  chamber,  died. 
In  the  most  loathsome  stages  of  the  confluent  small-pox,  his  body  had  for 
several  days  presented  but  a  mass  of  corruption.  Terror  had  driven  all  the 
courtiers  from  the  portion  of  the  palace  which  he  occupied,  and  even  Madame 
du  Barry  dared  not  approach  the  bed  where  her  guilty  paramour  was  dying. 
The  nurse  hired  to  attend  him  could  not  remain  in  the  apartment,  but  sat 
in  an  adjoining  room.  A  lamp  was  placed  at  the  window,  which  she  was  to 
extinguish  as  soon  as  the  king  was  dead.  Eagerly  the  courtiers  watched 
*  Historical  View  of  the  French  Revolution,  by  J.  Michelet,  vol.  i.,  p.  6-1:. 


58  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  YI. 

the  glimmering  of  that  light  that  they  might  be  the  first  to  bear  to  Louis, 
the  grandson  of  the  king,  the  tidings  that  he  was  monarch  of  France. 

Louis  was  then  hardly  twenty  years  of  age.*  His  wife,  Marie  Antoinette, 
daughter  of  Maria  Theresa,  Queen  of  Austria,  was  scarcely  nineteen.  They 
had  been  married  four  years.  Marie  Antoinette  was  one  of  the  most  beau- 
tiful of  women,  but  from  infancy  she  had  been  educated  in  the  belief  that 
kings  and  nobles  were  created  to  illustrate  life  by  gayety  and  splendor,  and 
that  the  people  were  created  only  to  be  their  servants.f 

The  taper  was  extinguished,  and  the  crowd  of  courtiers  rushed  to  the  apart- 
ment of  the  Dauphin  to  hail  him  as  Louis  XYI.  The  tidings,  though  ex- 
pected, for  a  moment  overwhelmed  them  both,  and,  encircled  in  each  other's 
arms,  they  fell  upon  their  knees,  while  Louis  exclaimed,  "  0  God!  guide  us^ 
protect  us,  we  are  too  young  to  govern^X  They  then  entered  the  grand  sa- 
loon, where  they  received  the  congratulations  of  all  the  dignitaries  of  the 
Church  and  the  State.  All  were  anxious  to  escape  from  the  palace  whose 
atmosphere  was  tainted,  and  hardly  an  hour  elapsed  ere  the  new  court,  in 
carriages  and  on  horseback,  left  Versailles  and  were  passing  rapidly  to  the 
Chateau  of  Choisy,  one  of  the  favorite  rural  palaces  of  Louis  XY,  The  loath- 
some remains  of  the  king  were  left  to  the  care  of  a  few  under-servants  to  be 
hurried  to  their  burial. 

It  was  not  yet  four  o'clock  in  the  morning.  The  sleepless  night,  the  chill 
morning  air,  the  awful  scene  of  death  from  which  they  had  come,  oppressed 
all  spirits.  Soon,  however,  the  sun  rose  warm  and  brilliant ;  a  jocular  re- 
mark dispelled  the  mental  gloom,  and  in  two  hours  they  arrived  at  the  pal- 
ace a  merry  party  exulting  in  the  new  reign.  The  education  of  Louis  XVL 
had  been  such  that  he  was  still  but  a  boy,  bashful,  self-distrusting,  and  en- 
tirely incompetent  to  guide  the  kingdom  through  the  terrific  storm  which  for 
ages  had  been  gathering.  He  had  not  the  remotest  idea  of  the  perils  with 
which  France  was  surrounded.  He  was  an  exceedingly  amiable  young  man, 
of  morals  most  singularly  pure  for  that  corrupt  age,  retiring  and  domestic  in 
his  tastes,  and  sincerely  desirous  of  promoting  the  happiness  of  France.  Ge- 
ography was  the  only  branch  of  learning  in  which  he  appeared  to  take  any 
special  interest.  He  framed,  with  much  sagacity,  the  instructions  for  the  voy- 
age of  LaPerouse  around  the  world  in  1786,  and  often  lamented  the  fate  of 
this  celebrated  navigator,  saying,  "  I  see  very  well  that  I  am  not  fortunate."§ 
How  mysterious  the  government  of  God,  that  upon  the  head  of  this  benevo- 
lent, kind-hearted,  conscientious  king  should  have  been  emptied,  even  to  the 
dregs,  those  vials  of  wrath  which  debauched  and  profligate  monarchs  had 
been  treasuring  up  for  so  many  reigns ! 

*  Louis  XVI.  was  born  Anp.  22,  1 ITA.  In  Mny,  1 770,  when  not  quite  sixteen,  he  manieil 
Marie  Antoinette.  In  May,  1774,  lie  wanted  three  months  of  hoin;j  twenty  years  of  ape.  Marie 
Antoinette  was  horn  Nov.  2,  17r>r>.  She  was  hut  fourteen  years  ami  six  months  old  when  mar- 
ried. She  was  but  eighteen  years  and  six  mouths  old  when  she  became  Queen  of  France. — En- 
cyclopedia Americana. 

t  "It  is  now  sixteen  or  seventeen  years  since  I  saw  the  Queen  of  France  at  Versailles;  and 
surely  never  liphted  on  this  orb,  which  slie  hardly  seemcil  to  touch,  a  more  delightful  vision  !  I 
saw  her  Just  above  the  lu)rizon,  decorating  and  cheering  the  elevated  sjihere  she  just  began  to  move 
in,  glittering  like  the  morning  star,  full  of  life  and  sjilendor  and  joy." — Burke's  Rrjlections. 

X  Memoirs  of  Marie  Antoinette,  by  Madame  Campan,  i.,  Iti. 

§   Encyclo]pa'dia  Americana,  articl-  Louis  XVI. 


1774.] 


THE  COURT  AND  THE  PARLIAMENT. 


59 


mi^^K: 


LOUIS  XVI.  ANT)  LA  PEEOCSE. 


Louis  had  no  force  of  cliaracter,  and,  destitute  of  self  reliance,  was  entirely 
guided  by  others.  At  the  suggestion  of  his  aunt,  Adelaide,  he  called  to  the 
post  of  prime  minister  Count  Maurepas,  who  was  eighty  years  of  age,  and 
who,  having  been  banished  from  Paris  by  Madame  de  Pompadour,  had  been 
living  for  thirty  years  in  retirement.  Thus  France  was  handed  over  in  these 
hours  of  peril  to  a  king  in  his  boyhood  and  a  prime  minister  in  his  dotage. 
Was  it  chance  ?  Was  it  Providence  ?  Clouds  and  darkness  surround  God's 
throne ! 

M.  Turgot  was  appointed  to  the  post  of  utmost  difficulty  and  danger — the 
administration  of  the  finances.  He  had  acquired  much  reputation  by  the 
skill  with  which,  for  twelve  years,  he  had  administered  the  government  of 
the  Province  of  Limousin.  The  kingdom  of  France  was  already  in  debt 
more  than  four  thousand  millions  of  francs  ($800,000,000).*  As  the  revenue 
was  by  no  means  sufficient  to  pay  the  interest  upon  this  debt  and  the  ex- 
penses of  the  government,  new  loans  had  been  incessantly  resorted  to,  and 
national  bankruptcy  was  near  at  hand.  To  continue  borrowing  was  ruin ; 
to  impose  higher  taxes  upon  the  people  impossible.  There  were  but  two 
measures  which  could  be  adopted.  One  was  to  introduce  a  reform  of  wide- 
sweeping  and  rigid  economy,  cutting  down  salaries,  abolishing  pensions  and 
sinecures,  and  introducing  frugality  into  the  pleasure-haunts  of  the  court. 
Turgot  was  too  well  acquainted  with  the  habits  of  the  courtiers  to  dream 
that  it  was  in  the  power  of  any  minister  to  enforce  this  reform.  There  re- 
mained only  the  plan  to  induce  the  clergy  and  the  nobles  to  allow  themselves 
to  be  taxed,  and  thus  to  bear  their  fair  proportion  of  the  expenses  of  the 
state.  Turgot  fully  understood  the  Herculean  task  before  him  in  attempting 
this  measure,  and  in  a  letter  to  the  king  he  wrote : 

*  EncyclopfEclia  Americana,  articlo  Louis  XV. 


go  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.VI. 

"  We  will  have  no  bankruptcies,  no  augmentation  of  the  taxes,  no  loans. 
I  sliall  have  to  combat  abuses  of  every  kind,  to  combat  those  who  are  bene- 
fited by  them,  and  even  the  kindness,  sire,  of  your  own  nature.  I  shall  be 
feared,  hated,  and  calumniated ;  but  the  afiecting  goodness  with  which  you 
pressed  my  hands  in  yours,  to  witness  your  acceptance  of  my  devotion  to 
vour  service,  is  never  to  be  obhterated  from  my  recollection,  and  must  sup- 
port me  under  every  trial."''^ 

Several  of  Turgot's  measures  of  reform  the  privileged  class  submitted  to, 
though  with  reluctance  and  with  many  murmurs;  but  when  he  proposed 
that  a  tax  should  be  fairly  and  equally  levied  upon  proprietors  of  every  de- 
scription, a  burst  of  indignant  remonstrance  arose  from  the  nobles  which 
drowned  his  voice.  To  suggest  that  a  high-horn  man  was  to  be  taxed  like 
one  loiv-born  was  an  insult  too  grievous  to  be  borne.  The  whole  privileged 
class  at  once  combined,  determined  to  crush  the  audacious  minister  thus  in- 
troducing the  doctrine  of  equal  taxation  into  the  court  of  aristocratic  privi- 
lege. 

Madame  du  Barry,  in  a  pet,  four  years  before,  had  abolished  the  Parliament 
of  Paris,  which  was  entirely  under  the  control  of  the  aristocracy.  Louis 
XVI.,  seeking  popularity,  restored  the  Parliament.  Unfortunately  for  re- 
form, the  nobles  had  now  an  organized  body  with  which  to  make  resistance. 
The  Parliament,  the  clergy,  the  old  minister  Maurepas,  and  even  the  young 
queen,  all  united  in  a  clamorous  onset  upon  Turgot,  and  he  was  driven  from 
the  ministry,  having  been  in  office  but  twenty  months.f  The  Parliament 
absolutely  refused  to  register  the  obnoxious  decree.  The  inexperienced  and 
timid  king,  frightened  by  the  clamor,  yielded,  and  abandoned  his  minister. 
Had  the  king  been  firm,  he  might,  perhaps,  have  carried  his  point ;  but  want 
of  capacity  leads  to  results  as  disastrous  as  treachery,  and  the  king,  though 
actuated  by  the  best  intentions,  was  ignorant  and  inefficient.  Though  the 
king  held  a  bed  ofjustice^\  and  ordered  the  edicts  registered,  they  remained  as 
dead  letters  and  were  never  enforced. 

There  was  in  Paris  a  wealthy  Protestant  banker,  born  in  Geneva,  of  great 
financial  celebrity,  M.  Necker.  He  was  called  to  take  the  place  of  Turgot. 
Warned  by  the  fate  of  his  predecessor  and  seeing  precisely  the  same  diffi- 
culties staring  him  in  the  face,  he  resolved  to  try  the  expedient  of  economy, 
cutting  off  pensions  and  abolishing  sinecures.     But  the  nobles,  in  Church 

*  Precis  de  la  Revolution,  par  M.  Lacrctelle. 

t  "  On  the  very  threshold  of  the  business  he  must  propose  to  make  the  clorpy,  the  noblesse, 
the  very  Parliament  subject  to  taxes !  One  shriek  of  indignation  and  astonishment  reverberates 
throujjh  all  the  chateau  galleries.  M.  dc  Maurej)as  has  to  pj-rate.  The  ])Oor  king,  who  had 
written  (to  Turgot)  a  few  weeks  ago,  '//  n'y  a  que  voiis  ct  7»oi  qui  aimions  le  pcupk'  (There  is  none 
but  you  and  I  who  love  the  jieople),  must  now  write  a  dismissal,  and  let  the  French  Revolution 
accomplish  itself  pacifically  or  not,  as  it  can." — Carlijle,  French  Revolution,  i.,  41. 

"The  nobles  and  the  j)relate8,  it  seems,  considered  themselves  degraded  if  they  were  to  con- 
tribute to  the  repair  of  the  roads ;  and  they  would  no  doubt  have  declared  that  their  dignity  and 
their  existence,  the  very  rights  of  jjroperty  itself,  were  endangered,  if  they  were  now,  for  tlie  first 
time,  they  woidd  have  said,  in  the  history  of  the  monarchy,  to  be  subjected  to  the  visits  of  the 
tax-gatherer." — lectures  on  the  French  Rerolution,  hji  Win.  Sntyth,  vol.  i.,  p.  102. 

X  Lit  <k  justice  was  a  jiroceeding  in  which  the  king,  with  his  court,  jtroceeded  to  the  Parlia- 
ment, and  there,  sitting  ujx.n  tlie  throne,  caused  those  edicts  which  the  Parliament  did  not  ap- 
provo  to  be  registered  in  liLs  presence. — Encyrlnjxedia  Americana. 


1775.]  THE  COURT  AND  THE  PARLIAMENT.  61 

and  State,  disliked  tliis  as  much  as  being  taxed,  and  immediately  tlieir  clamor 
was  renewed.* 

Just  at  this  time  the  American  war  of  independence  commenced.  All 
France  was  in  a  state  of  enthusiasm  in  view  of  a  heroic  people  struggling  to 
be  free.  And  when  the  American  delegation  appeared  in  Paris,  headed  by 
Franklin,  all  hearts  were  swept  along  by  a  current  which  neither  king  nor 
nobles  could  withstand.  The  republican  simphcity  of  Franklin  in  his  attire 
and  manners  produced  an  extraordinary  impression  upon  all  classes.  The 
French  ladies  in  particular  were  lavish  in  their  attentions.  Several  fetes 
were  given  in  his  honor,  at  one  of  which  the  most  beautiful  of  three  hundred 
ladies  crowned  him  with  a  laurel  wreath,  and  then  kissed  him  on  both 
cheeks.  Almost  every  saloon  was  ornamented  with  his  bust,  bearing  the 
inscription,  "  Eripuit  coelo  fulmen,  sceptrumque  tyrannis." 

All  the  latent  spirit  of  freedom  which  had  so  long  been  slowly  accumulat- 
ing burst  forth  with  a  power  which  alarmed  the  court.  Not  a  few  of  the 
nobles,  disgusted  with  the  aristocratic  oppression  which  was  ruining  France, 
gave  their  sympathies  to  the  American  cause.  The  Marquis  la  Fayette, 
then  but  eighteen  years  of  age,  openly  and  enthusiastically  applauded  the 
struggle  of  the  colonists,  Marie  Antoinette,  instinctively  hating  a  war  in 
which  the  people  were  contending  against  royalty,  expressed  much  indigna- 
tion that  La  Fayette  should  utter  such  sentiments  in  the  Palace  of  Versailles. 
Joseph  II.  of  Austria,  brother  of  Marie  Antoinette,  then  on  a  visit  to  the 
French  court,  was  asked  by  a  lady  his  opinion  of  the  subject  which  was  now 
engrossing  every  mind.  He  replied,  "I  must  decline  answering;  my  busi- 
ness is  to  be  a  Koyalist"  {Mon  metier  a  moi  c'est  d'etre  Royaliste).\ 

It  is  hardly  possible  for  one  now  to  realize  the  enthusiasm  with  which  the 
American  war,  at  that  time,  inspired  France.  Even  the  court  hated  En- 
gland, and  wished  to  see  that  domineering  power  humbled.  The  mind  of 
the  nation  had  just  awakened  and  was  thoroughly  aroused  from  the  letharg}" 
of  ages.  Theories,  dreams,  aspirations  had  exhausted  themselves,  and  yet 
there  was  in  France  no  scope  whatever  for  action.  America  opened  a  thea- 
tre for  heroic  enterprise.  France  had  given  the  theory  of  hberty,  America 
was  illustrating  that  theory  by  practice.  The  popular  cry  so  effectuall}^ 
drowned  every  other  voice  that  even  the  king  was  compelled  to  yield.  A 
treaty  with  America  was  signed  which  drew  from  the  treasury  of  France 
twelve  hundred  millions  of  francs  ($240,000,000),  in  support  of  American 
independence.:}:  Bat  for  the  substantial  aid  thus  rendered  by  the  fleet  and 
the  army  of  France  it  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  the  American  Eevolution 
would  have  been  crushed,  Washington  and  Franklin  would  have  been  hang- 
ed as  traitors,  and  monarchical  historians  would  elegantly  have  described  the 
horrors  of  the  great  American  rebellion.§ 

*  It  is  not  necessary  to  alhide  to  De  Chagny,  who  immediately  succeeded  Turgot,  but  who 
held  his  office  six  months  only  and  attempted  nothing. 

t  Woman  in  France,  by  Julia  Kavanagh,  p.  211.  Memoirs  of  Marie  Antoinette,  by  Madame 
Campan,  vol.  i.,  p.  375. 

X  Hist.  Phil,  de  la  France,  par  Ant.  Fantin  Desodoards,  t.  i.,  p.  28.  Audouin  states  that  the 
war  cost  France,  from  1778  to  1782,  fourteen  hundred  millions  of  livres  ($280,000,000). 

§  "The  queen  never  disguised  her  dislike  to  the  American  war.  She  could  not  conceive  how 
any  one  could  advise  a  sovereign  to  aim  at  the  humiliation  of  England  through  an  attack  on  the 


62  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  YI. 

The  king,  however,  had  sufficient  intelhgeuce  to  appreciate  the  suicidal 
act  he  was  thus  compelled  to  perform.  With  extreme  reluctance  he  signed 
the  treaty  which  recognized  the  right  of  nations  to  change  their  government. 
The  doctrine  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  people  was  thus  legitimated  in  France. 
That  one  sentiment  unresisted  would  sweep  Europe  of  its  despotic  thrones. 
As  the  king  signed  the  treaty,  Feb.  8,  1778,  he  remarked  to  his  minister, 
"  You  will  remember,  sir,  that  this  is  contrary  to  my  opinion."*  The  same 
weakness  which  constrained  Louis  XVI.  to  abandon  Turgot  to  his  enemies, 
compelled  him  to  perform  this  act  which  his  views  of  state  policy  condemned. 
"IIow  painful,"  he  writes,  in  his  private  correspondence,  "to  be  obliged,  for 
reasons  of  state,  to  sign  orders  and  commence  a  great  war  contrary  alike  to 
my  opinions  and  my  wishes."f 

In  the  midst  of  these  transactions  Voltaire,  after  an  absence  of  twenty- 
seven  years,  much  of  which  time  he  had  passed  in  his  retreat  at  Ferney, 
about  five  miles  from  Geneva,  revisited  Paris.  He  was  then  eighty-four 
years  of  age.  The  court  hated  the  bold  assailcr  of  corruptions,  and  refused 
to  receive  him.  But  the  populace  greeted  him  with  enthusiasm  unparalleled. 
He  attended  the  theatre  where  his  last  play,  "Irene,"  was  acted.  Imme- 
diately upon  his  appearance  the  whole  audience,  rising,  greeted  him  with  long 
and  tumultuous  applause.  As,  overpowered  with  emotion,  he  rose  to  depart, 
with  trembhng  limbs  and  with  flooded  eyes,  men  of  the  highest  rank  and 
beautiful  women  crowded  around  him  and  literally  bore  him  in  their  arms 
to  his  carriage.  He  could  only  exclaim,  "Do  you  wish  to  kill  me  with 
joy  ?"  A  crowd  with  lighted  torches  filled  the  streets,  making  his  path 
brilliant  as  day,  and  shouts  of  triumph  arose  which  appalled  the  courtiers  in 
the  saloons  of  the  palace.  A  few  weeks  after  this,  May  30,  1778,  Voltaire 
died.  The  Archbishoj^  of  Paris  refused  to  allow  him  Christian  burial,  and 
the  court  forbade  his  death  to  be  mentioned  in  the  public  journals.  His 
corpse  was  taken  from  the  city  and  buried  secretly  at  an  old  abbey  at 
Scellitires.  This  petty  persecution  only  exasperated  the  friends  of  reform. 
A  month  after  the  death  of  Voltaire,  Kousseau  also  passed  away  to  the  spirit- 
land. 

The  situation  of  Necker  was  now  deplorable.  The  kingdom  was  involved 
in  an  enormously  expensive  war.  The  court  would  not  consent  to  any  dim- 
inution of  its  indulgences,  and  the  privileged  class  would  not  consent  to  be 
taxed.  Necker  was  almost  in  despair.  He  borrowed  of  every  one  who 
would  lend,  and  from  the  already  exhausted  people  with  sorrow,  almost  with 
anguish,  gleaned  every  sou  which  the  most  ingenious  taxation  could  extort. 

"Never  shall  I  forget,"  he  wrote,  in  1791,  "the  long,  dark  staircase  of  M. 
Maurepas,  the  terror  and  the  melancholy  with  which  I  used  to  ascend  it,  un- 
certain of  the  success  of  some  idea  that  had  occurred  to  me,  hkely,  if  carried 
into  cflect,  to  produce  an  increase  of  the  revenue,  but  likely  at  the  same 
time  to  fall  severely  though  justly  on  some  one  or  other;  the  sort  of  hesita- 
tion and  diffidence  with  which  I  ventured  to  intermingle  in  my  rcprcsenta- 

sovcrcipn  authority,  and  by  nsRi'stinp  a  people  to  organize  a  republican  constitution.  She  often 
liuiKhed  at  tlic  enthusiasm  with  which  Franklin  inspired  the  French."— JAuiame  Cumpuns 
Man.  of  Marie  Antoinette,  ii.,  29. 

*  Lectures  on  Fr.  liev.,  by  Wm.  Sinytli,  i.,  100.  f  Cor.  Conf.  dj  Louis  XVI.,  ii.,  178. 


1781.]  TH5  COURT  AND  THE  PAKLIAMENT.  6j 

tions  any  of  those  maxims  of  justice  and  of  riglit  witli  wliicli  my  own  heart 
was  animated." 

For  a  time  Necker  succeeded  by  loans  and  annuities  in  raising  money, 
but  at  last  it  became  more  difficult  to  find  lenders,  and  national  bankruptcy 
seemed  inevitable.  And  what  is  national  bankruptcy  ?  It  is  the  paralysis 
of  industry,  and  wide-spreading  consternation  and  woe.  Thousands  of  wid- 
ows and  orphans  had  all  their  patrimony  in  the  national  funds.  The  failure 
of  these  funds  was  to  them  beggary  and  starvation.  The  hospitals,  the 
schools,  the  homes  of  refuge  for  the  aged  and  infirm — all  would  lose  their 
support.  The  thousands  in  governmental  employ  and  those  dependent  upon 
them  would  be  left  in  utter  destitution.  The  bankruptcy  of  a  solitary  mer- 
chant may  send  poverty  to  many  families — the  bankruptcy  of  a  nation 
sends  paleness  to  the  cheeks  and  anguish  to  the  hearts  of  millions. 

In  this  exigence  Necker  adopted  the  bold  resolve  to  publish  an  honest 
account  of  the  state  of  the  finances,  that  the  nation,  nobles,  and  unennobled 
might  see  the  destruction  toward  which  the  state  was  drifting.  Necker 
thought  that,  if  the  facts  were  fairly  presented,  the  privileged  class,  in  view 
of  the  ruin  otherwise  inevitable,  would  consent  to  bear  their  share  of  taxa- 
tion, manifestly  the  only  possible  measure  which  could  arrest  the  disaster. 
He  consequently,  in  1781,  published  his  celebrated  Compte  Rendu  au  Roi. 
The  impression  which  this  pamphlet  produced  was  amazing.  Two  hundred 
thousand  copies  were  immediately  called  for,  and  the  appalling  revelation 
went  with  electric  speed  through  the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  the  land. 
It  was  read  in  the  saloon,  in  the  work-shop,  and  in  the  hamlet.  Groups  of 
those  who  could  not  read  were  gathered  at  all  corners  to  hear  it  read  by  others. 

"  We  wetted  with  our  tears,"  writes  M.  Eabaud  de  St.  Etienne,  who  acted 
an  illustrious  part  in  those  days,  "  those  pages  which  a  citizen  minister  had 
imprinted  with  luminous  and  comfortable  reflections,  and  where  he  was 
turning  all  his  attention  to  the  prosperity  of  the  French  with  a  sensibility 
deserving  of  their  gratitude.  The  "people  blessed  him  as  its  savior.  But  all 
those  nourished  by  abuses  formed  a  confederacy  against  the  man  who  seem- 
ed about  to  wrest  their  prey  from  them." 

Necker  was  desirous  of  introducing  some  popular  element  into  the  gov- 
ernment. There  was  now  a  numerous  body  of  men  belonging  to  the  un- 
privileged class,  energetic  and  enlightened,  whose  voice  ought  to  be  heard 
in  the  administration  of  affairs  as  representatives  of  the  people.  He  there- 
fore recommended  that  there  should  be  provincial  parliaments  in  the  differ- 
ent departments  of  France,  somewhat  corresponding  with  the  present  legis- 
latures in  the  United  States.  In  a  few  of  the  provinces  there  were  already 
parliaments,  but  they  were  composed  exclusively  of  the  privileged  class. 
Turgot  also  had  contemplated  provincial  legislatures,  which  he  desired  to 
constitute  as  the  organ  of  the  peopfe,  and  to  be  composed  only  of  members 
of  the  Tiers  Etat.*  Necker,  however,  hoped  to  conciliate  the  nobles  by 
giving  the  privileged  body  an  equal  representation  with  the  unprivileged  in 
these  assemblies.  One  half  were  to  be  representatives  of  the  clergy  and  the 
nobility,  and  the  other  half  of  the  people,  though  the  people  numbered  mil- 
lions, while  the  clergy  and  nobles  numbered  but  thousands. 

*  Lectures  on  the  French  Kcvohition,  by  William  Smyth,  i.,  115. 


64  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  VI. 

Necker's  report  showed  that  the  interest  upon  the  public  debt  absorbed 
one  third  of  the  revenues ;  that  the  remaining  two  thirds  were  by  no  means 
sufficient  for  carrying  on  the  government,  and  that,  consequently,  the  bur- 
den was  continually  growing  heavier  by  loans  and  accumulations.*  The 
suggestions  of  Necker,  to  give  the  people  a  voice  in  the  administration  of 
affiiirs  and  to  tax  high-born  men  equally  with  low-born,  created  intense  op- 
position. The  storm  became  too  fierce  to  be  resisted.  Both  the  king  and 
the  prime  minister  yielded  to  its  violence,  and  Necker,  like  Turgot,  was 
driven  with  contumely  from  the  ministry  and  into  exile.  The  hearts  of  the 
people  followed  the  defeated  minister  to  his  retreat.  These  outrages  were 
but  making  the  line  which  separated  the  privileged  from  the  unprivileged 
more  visible,  and  were  rousing  and  combining  the  masses.  The  illustrious 
financier,  in  his  retirement,  wrote  his  celebrated  work  upon  the  administra- 
tion of  the  finances,  a  work  which  contributed  much  to  the  enlightenment 
of  the  public  mind.f  The  intellect  of  the  nation  was  roused,  as  never  be- 
fore, to  the  discussion  of  the  affairs  of  state.  In  the  parlor,  the  counting- 
room,  the  work-shop,  the  fiirm-house,  and  the  field,  all  were  employed  in  de- 
liberating upon  the  one  great  topic  which  engrossed  universal  attention. 
And  yet  the  nobles  and  their  partisans,  with  infatuation  inexplicable,  resisted 
all  measures  of  reform  ;  a  singular  illustration  of  the  Eoman  adage,  "  Quem 
Deus  vult  perdere  priusquam  dementat"  {whom  God  icoidd  destroy  he  first 
mcdces  mad). 

Indeed,  the  opposition  was  sufficiently  formidable  to  appal  any  minister. 
There  were  eighty  thousand  nobles,  inheriting  the  pride  and  prestige  of 
feudal  power,  with  thousands,  dependent  upon  their  smiles,  rallying  around 
them  as  allies.  There  were  the  officers  in  the  army,  who  were  either  hered- 
itary nobles  or,  still  worse,  men  of  wealth  who  had  jDurchased  titles  of  no- 
bility. There  were  a  hundred  thousand  persons  who,  in  various  ways,  had 
purchased  immunity  from  the  burdens  of  state,  and  were  thus  within  the 
limits  of  the  privileged  class,  and  hated  by  the  people,  though  despised  by 
the  nobles.  There  were  two  hundred  thousand  priests  bound  by  the  strong- 
est of  possible  tics  to  the  hierarchy,  the  humble  class  depending  for  posi- 
tion and  bread  upon  their  spiritual  lords  and  obliged  by  the  most  solemn 
oaths  to  obey  their  superiors.  And  these  priests,  intrusted  with  the  keys  of 
heaven  and  of  hell,  as  was  supposed  by  the  unenlightened  masses,  held  mil- 
lions in  subjection  by  the  most  resistless  powers  of  superstition.  There 
were  sixty  thousand  in  the  cloisters  of  the  monasteries,  many  of  them  disso- 
lute in  the  extreme,  and  who  were  necessarily  subservient  to  the  ecclesias- 
tics, '^i'here  were  the  farmers  general,  the  collectors  of  the  revenue,  and  all 
the  vast  army  of  office-holders,  who  were  merely  the  agents  of  the  court. 

*  "The  notion  that  onr  mnlndies  were  incnpnble  of  remedy,  and  that  no  human  mind  could 
cure  them,  added  keenly  to  the  K^ncral  prief.  We  saw  ourselves  plunged  into  a  gulf  of  debts 
and  i>nlj!i(;  engagements,  the  interest  alone  of  which  absorbed  the  third  part  of  the  revenue,  and 
whicli,  far  from  being  jnit  into  a  course  of  lifjuidation,  were  continually  accumulating  by  loans 
and  anticipations."— ///stor^/  of  the  French  Revolution,  hi/  ;V.  Rnhmid  de  St.  Etietnie,  vol.  i.,")).  10. 

t  "And  so  Necker,  Atlas-like,  sustains  the  burden  of  the  finances  for  five  years  long.  "With- 
out wages— for  he  refused  such— cheered  only  by  jmblic  ojjinion  and  the  ministering  of  his  noble 
wife.  He,  too,  has  to  produce  his  scheme  of  taxing;  clergy,  noblesse  to  be  taxed— like  a  mere 
Turgot.     Let  Necker  also  dei>art ;  not  unlamented."— Car/j^fc,  French  Revolution,  vol.  i.,  p.  46. 


1781.]  THE  COUKT  AND  THE  PARLIAMENT.  65 

"  This  formidable  mass  of  men,"  says  M.  Rabaud  de  St.  Etienne,  "  were  in 
possession  of  all  France.  They  held  her  by  a  thousand  chains.  They 
formed,  in  a  body,  what  was  termed  la  haute  nation.  All  the  rest  was  the 
people.'^* 

Though  the  privileged  class  and  their  dependents,  which  we  have  above 
enumerated,  amounted  to  but  a  few  hundred  thousand,  perhaps  not  five 
hundred  thousand  in  all,  and  the  people  amounted  to  some  twenty -five  mil- 
lions, still  all  the  power  was  with  the  aristocracy.  The  mass  of  the  people 
were  merely  slaves,  unarmed,  unorganized,  uneducated.  They  had  been 
degraded  and  dispirited  by  ages  of  oppression,  and  had  no  means  of  com- 
bining or  of  uttering  a  united  voice  which  should  be  heard. 

Immediately  succeeding  M.  Necker  in  the  ministry  of  finance  came  M. 
Fleury  and  M.  d'Ormesson.  They  were  both  honest,  well-meaning  men,  but 
were  promptly  crushed  by  a  burden  which  neither  of  them  was  at  all  capa- 
ble of  bearing.  Their  names  are  hardly  remembered.  Maurepas  was  now 
dead.  The  Americans,  aided  by  France,  had  achieved  their  independence, 
and  France  and  England  were  again  at  peace.  The  king  now  selected  M.  de 
Calonne  from  the  Parliament,  as  Minister  of  Finance.  He  was  a  man  of 
brilliant  genius,  of  remarkably  courtly  manners,  but  licentious  and  extrava- 
gant. The  king  hoped,  by  his  selecting  Calonne,  to  diminish  that  opposi- 
tion of  the  Parliament  which  was  daily  growing  more  inveterate  against  the 
crown.  For  a  time  the  new  minister  was  exceedingly  popular.  His  high 
reputation  for  financial  skill  and  his  suavity  enabled  him  to  effect  important 
loans ;  and  by  the  sale  and  the  mortgage  of  the  property  of  the  crown  he 
succeeded  for  a  few  months  in  having  money  in  abundance.  The  court 
rioted  anew  in  voluptuous  indulgence.  The  beautiful  palace  of  St.  Cloud 
was  bought  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans  for  the  queen,  and  vast  sums  were  ex- 
pended for  its  embellishment.  The  Palace  of  Rambouillet  was  purchased  as 
a  hunting-seat  for  the  king.  Marie  Antoinette  gave  innumerable  costly  en- 
tertainments at  Yersailles,  and  rumor  was  rife  with  the  scenes  of  measureless 
extravagance  which  were  there  displayed.  The  well-meaning,  weak-minded 
king,  having  no  taste  for  courtly  pleasure  and  no  ability  for  the  management 
of  aifairs,  either  unconscious  of  the  peril  of  the  state  or  despairing  of  anv 
remedy,  fitted  up  a  workshop  at  Yersailles,  where  he  employed  most  of  his 
time  at  a  forge,  under  the  guidance  of  a  blacksmith,  tinkering  locks  and 
keys.     This  man.  Gamin,  has  recorded  : 

"  The  king  was  good,  indulgent,  timid,  curious,  fond  of  sleep.  He  pas- 
sionately loved  working  as  a  smith,  and  hid  himself  from  the  queen  and  the 
court  to  file  and  forge  with  me.  To  set  up  his  anvil  and  mine,  unknown  to 
all  the  world,  it  was  necessary  to  use  a  thousand  stratagems."f 

There  is  a  secret  power  called  ^3?<5//c  credit  which  will  speedily  bring  such 
a  career  to  its  close.  Public  credit  was  now  exhausted.  No  more  money 
could  be  borrowed.  The  taxes  for  some  time  in  advance  were  already 
pledged  in  payment  of  loans.  The  people,  crushed  by  their  burdens,  could 
not  bear  any  augmentation  of  taxes.  The  crisis  seemed  to  have  come.  Ca- 
lonne now  awoke  to  the  consciousness  of  his  condition,  and  was  overpowered 

*  M.  Eabaud  de  St.  Etienne,  vol.  i.,  p.  22. 

t  Memoirs  of  the  Reign  of  Louis  XVI.,  bv  the  Abbe  Soulavie,  vol.  ii.,  p.  191. 

E 


66 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  VT. 


L0UI8  S\I.    AS  LOCKSMITn. 


by  the  magnitude  of  the  difficulties  in  -which  he  was  involved.  There  was 
but  one  mode  of  redress — an  iramediaie  retrenchment  of  expenses  and  the  in- 
cluding of  the  privileged  class  in  the  assessment  of  taxes.  Whoever  had  at- 
tempted this  had  been  crushed  by  the  aristocratic  Parliament.  Could  Ca- 
lonne  succeed?  After  long  and  anxious  deliberation  he  became  cor'.sious 
that  it  would  be  impossible  to  induce  the  Parliament  to  consent  to  such  a 
reform,  that  it  would  be  very  hazardous  to  call  a  meeting  of  the  States-Gen- 
eral, where  the  j^cople  could  make  their  voice  to  be  heard,  and  yet  it  was  es- 
sential to  have  some  public  body  upon  which  he  could  lean  for  support, 
lie  therefore  recommended  that  the  king  should  convene  an  assembly  of  the 
notables,  to  be  composed  of  such  individuals  as  the  king  should  select  from 
the  clergy,  the  nobles,  and  the  magistracy,  they  all  belonging  to  the  privi- 
leged class.  Such  an  assembl}'-  had  never  been  convened  since  Eichelien 
called  one  in  1626. 


1787.]  ^^^  ASSEMBLY  OF  THE  NOTABLES.  g7 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE   ASSEMBLY  OF  THE   NOTABLES, 

Measures  of  Brienne. — The  Bed  of  Justice. — Remonstrance  of  Parliament. — Parliament  Exiled. 
— Submission  of  Parliament. — Duke  of  Orleans. — Treasonable  Plans  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans. 
— Anxiety  of  the  Queen. — The  Diamond  Necklace. — Monsieur,  the  King's  Brother. — Baga- 
telle.— Desperation  of  Brienne. — Edict  for  abolishing  the  Parliaments. — Energy  of  the  Court. 
— Arrest  of  D'Espremenil  and  Goislard. — Tumults  in  Grenoble. — Terrific  Hail-storm. 

The  Notables,  one  hundred  and  forty-four  in  number,  nearly  all  ecclesi- 
astics, nobles,  or  ennobled,  met  at  Versailles,  Jan.  29,  1787.  Calonne  ex- 
pected tliat  this  body,  carefully  selected  by  the  king,  would  advise  that  all 
orders  should  make  common  cause  and  bear  impartially  the  burden  of  tax- 
ation. Sustained  by  the  moral  power  of  this  advice  he  hoped  that  the  meas- 
ure could  be  carried  into  execution.  He  presented  his  statement  of  affairs. 
Though  he  endeavored  to  conceal  the  worst,  the  Notables  were  appalled. 
Three  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  dollars  had  been  borrowed  within  a  few 
years,  and  the  annual  deficit  was  thirty-five  millions  of  dollars.*  Cautiously 
he  proposed  his  plan  of  impartial  taxation.  It  was  the  signal  for  a  general 
assault  upon  the  doomed  minister.  He  was  literally  hooted  down.  Not 
only  the  Assemby  of  Notables,  but  the  clergy,  the  Parliament,  the  nobles 
all  over  the  realm  pounced  upon  him,  led  even  by  the  queen  and  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Paris ;  and  Calonne,  without  a  friend,  was  compelled  to  resign  his 
office  and  to  fly  from  France.f 

The  clergy  were  exceedingly  exasperated  against  Calonne,  for  they  deemed 
the  proposition  to  tax  the  possessions  of  the  Church  as  sacrilegious.  The 
most  active  of  the  opponents  of  Calonne  was  Brienne,  Archbishop  of  Tou- 
louse. He  was  a  bold,  resolute,  ambitious  man,  and  by  the  influence  of  the 
queen  was  appointed  to  succeed  Calonne.  "  As  public  credit  was  dead," 
said  a  wag,  "  an  archbishop  was  summoned  to  bury  the  remains.":|:  The 
spirit  of  discontent  and  of  menace  was  now  becoming  every  day  more  ex- 
tended and  alarming,  and  the  Revolution  was  gaining  strength. 

Among  the  Notables  thus  assembled  there  were  some  warm  advocates  of 
popular  liberty.  La  Fayette  was  perhaps  the  most  conspicuous  of  these. 
He  spoke  boldly  against  leitres  de  cachet  and  other  abuses-.  The  Count  d'Ar- 
tois,  afterward  Charles  X.,  reproved  him  for  this  freedom.  La  Fayette  firm- 
ly, yet  with  caution,  responded,  "When  a  Notable  is  summoned  to  speak 
his  opinion  he  must  speak  it."§ 

One  of  the  first  acts  of  Brienne  was  to  abolish  the  Assembly  of  Notables. 

*  Histoire  Philosophique  de  la  Revolution  de  France,  par  Ant.  Fantin  Desodoards,  t.  i.,  p.  58. 

t  "Calonne  has  pviblished  a  work  on  the  French  Revolution.  At  the  end  of  it  he  gives  an 
outline  of  his  plan.  Nothing  can  be  more  reasonable  ;  and  it  remains  an  eternal  indictment  on 
the  people  of  consequence  then  in  France,  more  particularly  on  that  part  of  them  that  composed 
the  Assembly  of  Notables." — Lectures  on  the  French  Revolntmi,  hy  Wm.  Smyth,  vol.  i.,  p.  122. 

X  Montgaillard,  vol.  i.,  p.  300. 

§  There  was  at  this  time  a  nominal  tax  of  two  twentieths  upon  all  incomes,  which  the  clergy 


68  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  YII. 

Their  session  continued  but  nine  weeks,  being  dissolved  May  25, 1787.  He 
then  struggled  for  a  time  in  the  midst  of  embarrassments  inextricable  until 
he  was  compelled  to  propose  the  same  measure  which  had  already  been  three 
times  rejected  with  scorn,  and  which  had  driven  three  ministers  in  disgrace 
from  Paris — the  taxing  of  the  nobles.  He  did  every  thing  in  his  power  to  pre- 
pare the  way  for  the  suggestion,  and  connected  the  obnoxious  bill  with  an- 
other less  objectionable,  hoping  that  the  two  might  pass  together.  But  the 
clergy  and  the  nobles  were  on  the  alert. 

Two  thirds  of  the  territory  of  the  kingdom  had  been  grasped  by  the  Church 
and  the  nobles.  One  third  only  belonged  to  the  people.  Brienne  proposed 
a  territorial  tax  ichich  should  fall  ujwn  all  landed  proprietors  alike.  There  was 
an  instantaneous  shout  of  indignation  from  the  whole  privileged  class,  and 
the  cry  "Away  with  him,"  "Hustle  him  out,"  spread  from  castle  to  castle, 
and  from  convent  to  convent. 

It  was  a  custom,  rather  than  a  law,  that  no  royal  decree  could  pass  into 
effect  until  it  had  been  registered  by  Parliament ;  and  it  was  a  custom,  rather 
than  a  law,  that,  if  the  Parliament  refused  to  register  a  decree,  the  king  could 
hold  what  is  called  a  led  of  justice ;  that  is,  could  summon  the  Parliament 
into  his  presence  and  command  the  decree  to  be  registered.  As  the  king 
could  banish,  or  imprison,  or  behead  any  one  at  his  pleasure,  no  Parliament 
had  as  yet  ventured  to  disobey  the  royal  command. 

The  Parliament  declined  registering  the  decree  taxing  the  property  of  the 
clergy  and  the  nobles.  The  king  peremptoril}^  summoned  the  whole  refract- 
ory body  to  appear  before  him.  It  was  the  6th  of  August,  1787.  In  a  vast 
train  of  carriages,  all  the  members,  some  one  hundred  and  twenty  in  num- 
ber, wheeled  out  from  Paris  to  the  Palace  of  Versailles.  There  the  king  with 
his  own  lips  ordered  them  to  register  the  decree.  Obedient  to  the  royal  or- 
der it  was  registered,  and  the  Parliament,  sullen  and  exasperated,  was  rolled 
back  again  to  the  metropolis.  The  people  contemplated  the  scene  in  silent 
expectation,  and  by  thousands  surrounded  the  Parliament  on  its  return,  and 
greeted  them  with  acclamations. 

Emboldened  by  the  sympathy  of  the  people  in  this  conflict  with  the  court, 
the  Parliament  ventured  to  enter  upon  its  records  a  remonstrance  against 
the  violent  procedure ;  and,  to  gain  still  more  strength  from  popular  ap- 
proval, they  made  the  strange  assertion  that  Parliament  was  not  competent 
to  register  tax  edicts  at  all ;  that  for  this  act  the  authority  of  the  three  estates 
of  the  realm  was  essential,  convened  in  the  States-General.  This  was,  in- 
deed, unheard  of  doctrine,  for  the  Parliament  had  for  centuries  registered 
such  decrees.  It,  however,  answered  its  purpose ;  it  brought  the  masses  of 
the  people  at  once  and  enthusiastically  upon  their  side. 

nnd  the  nobility  were  to  pay  ns  tlic  rest.  They  contrived,  howevor,  in  a  great  measure  to  evade  this 
tax.  "  Tiic  princes  of  the  blood,  for  example, "  says  Bouillc,  in  his  INIcmoirs,  "  who  enjoyed  amonp 
them  from  twenty-four  to  twenty-five  millions  yearly  (!!i"),000,000),  jiaid  for  their  two'twentieths 
only  188,000  livrcs  ($37,600)  instead  of  2,400,000  ($480,000).  The  Duke  of  Orleans,  who  presided 
over  the  committee  to  which  I  belonged  in  the  Assembly  of  the  Notables,  said  to  me,  one  day, 
after  a  deliberation  in  which  we  had  considered  and  ai)])roved  the  establishment  of  provincial  ad- 
ministrations, 'Are  you  aware,  sir,  that  this  jilcasantry  will  cost  me  at  least  300,000  livres 
($00,000)  a  year  ?'  '  How  is  that,  my  lord  ?'  I  asked.  '  At  present, '  ho  rej.licd,  '  I  arranRC  with 
the  iiitcndants,  and  pay  pretty  nearly  what  I  like.  The  jnovincial  administrations,  on  the  con- 
trarj-,  will  make  me  pay  what  is  strictly  due.'  "—Bouillc's  Memoirs,  p.  41. 


1787.]  THE  ASSExMBLY  OF  THE  NOTABLES.  69 

This  call  for  the  States-General  was  the  first  decisive  step  toward  bring- 
ing the  23eople  into  the  field.  Tumultuous  crowds  surrounded  the  palace 
where  the  Parliament  held  its  session,  and  with  clapping  of  hands  and  shouts 
received  the  tidings  of  the  resolutions  adopted.  The  king,  indignant,  issued 
letters  cle  cachet  on  the  night  of  the  14th,  and  the  next  morning  the  whole 
body  was  arrested  and  taken  in  carriages  into  banishment  to  Troyes,  a  dull 
city  about  one  hundred  miles  from  Paris.  The  blessings  of  the  people  fol- 
lowed the  Parliament;'*  "for  there  are  quarrels,"  says  Carlyle,  "in  which 
even  Satan,  bringing  help,  were  not  unwelcome." 

Paris  was  now  in  a  state  of  commotion.  Defiant  placards  were  posted 
upon  the  walls,  and  there  were  angry  gatherings  in  the  streets.  The  two 
brothers  of  the  king,  subsequently  Louis  XVIII.  and  Charles  X.,  entered 
Paris  in  state  carriages  to  expunge  from  the  records  of  the  Parliament  the 
obnoxious  protests  and  resolutions.  They  came  with  a  well-armed  retinue. 
The  stormy  multitudes  frowned  and  hissed,  and  were  only  dispersed  by  the 
gleam  of  the  sword. 

For  a  month  Parliament  remained  at  Troyes,  excessively  weary  of  exile. 
In  the  mean  time  Brienne  had  no  money,  and  could  raise  none.  Both  par- 
ties were  ready  for  accommodation.  The  crown  consented  to  relinquish  the 
tax  upon  the  nobles^  and  to  summon  the  States-Greneral  in  five  years.  Parha- 
ment  consented  to  register  an  edict  for  a  loan  of  one  hundred  millions  of 
dollars,  the  burden  of  which  was  to  fall  upon  the  people  alone.  With  this 
arrangement  the  exiled  Parliament  was  brought  back  on  the  20th  of  Sep- 
tember. "  It  went  out,"  said  D'Espremenil,  "  covered  with  glory.  It  came 
back  covered  with  mud." 

On  the  20th  of  September  the  king  appeared  before  the  Parliament  in  per- 
son, to  present  the  edict  for  the  loan  and  the  promise  to  convoke  the  States- 
General  at  the  close  of  five  years. 

There  was  at  that  time  in  Parliament  a  cousin  of  the  king,  the  Duke  of 
Orleans,  one  of  the  highest  nobles  of  the  realm.f  Inheriting  from  his  fa- 
ther the  enormous  Orleans  property,  and  heir,  through  his  wife,  to  the  vast 
estates  of  the  Duke  of  Penthievre,  he  was  considered  the  richest  man  in 
France,  enjoying  an  income  of  seven  million  five  hundred  thousand  francs 
a  year  ($1,500,000).  For  years  he  had  been  rioting  in  measureless  bebauch- 
ery.     His  hair  was  falling  off,  his  blood  was  corrupted,  and  his  bronzed  face 

*  "  This  body  at  first  courageously  sustained  the  blow  which  had  fallen  upon  them.  But 
soon  men  accustomed  to  the  pleasures  of  Paris  threw  aside  the  mask  of  stoicism  which  they 
had  assumed,  and  redeemed  themselves  from  exile  by  promising  to  adopt  the  \iews  of  the  court, 
provided  that  no  new  taxation  was  proposed." — Desodoards,  vol.  i.,  p.  68. 

t  The  Marquis  of  Ferrieres,  a  noble  of  high  rank,  was  a  deputy  of  the  nobles.  He  was  a  warm 
patron  of  the  old  opinions  and  customs,  and  voted  perseveringly  with  the  majority  of  his  order. 
In  his  very  interesting  Memoii's  he  -writes  thus  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  upon  whom,  of  course,  he 
could  not  look  with  a  partial  eye.  "  The  duke  vi-as  himself  without  talents,  and  debased  by  a 
life  of  drunkenness ;  greedy  of  money  to  a  degree  that  would  have  been  perfectly  reprehensible 
in  a  private  man,  but  which  was  disgraceful  and  degrading  in  a  prince.  He  had  every  vice  which 
can  make  crime  odious,  and  none  of  the  brilliant  qualities  by  which  it  can  be  in  some  degree  il- 
lustrated in  the  eyes  of  posterity.  The  dead  feelings  of  the  duke  it  was  necessaiy  to  animate  in 
some  way  or  other,  that  he  might  appear  to  have  a  wish  for  something,  and  so  they  held  out  to 
him  the  supreme  power,  under  the  title  of  lieutenant-general  of  the  kingdom ;  all  the  public  money 
at  his  disposal,  and  in  the  event,  which  it  was  for  him  to  hasten,  the  crown  for  his  children,  and 
himself  thus  made  the  commencement  of  a  new  dynasty." 


70  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  Vil. 

was  covered  \\ritli  carbuncles  *  Sated  with  sensual  indulgence,  the  passion 
for  political  distinction  seized  his  soul.  As  heir  to  the  dukedom  of  Pen- 
thitivre,  he  looked  forward  to  the  office  of  high  admiral.  In  preparation  he 
ventured  upon  a  naval  campaign,  and  commanded  the  rear  guard  of  M. 
d'Orvilliers'  fleet  in  the  battle  off  Ushant.  Rumor  affirmed  that  during  the 
battle  he  hid  in  the  hold  of  the  ship.  The  court,  exasperated  by  his  haught- 
iness, and  jealous  of  his  power,  gladly  believed  the  story,  and  overwhelmed 
him  with  caricatures  and  epigrams.  Some  time  after  this  he  ascended  in  a 
balloon,  and  as  he  had  previously  descended  a  mine,  where  he  had  shown 
but  little  self-possession,  it  was  stated  that  he  had  shown  all  the  elements 
his  cowardice.f  The  king  withheld  from  him,  thus  overwhelmed  with  ridi- 
cule, the  office  of  admiral,  and  conferred  it  upon  his  nephew,  the  son  of  the 
Count  d'Artois. 

The  Duke  of  Orleans  was  envenomed  by  the  affront,  and  breathed  ven- 
geance. While  in  this  state  of  mind,  and  refusing  to  present  himself  at 
court,  he  received  another  indignity  still  more  exasperating.  A  matrimo- 
nial alliance  had  been  arranged  between  the  eldest  daughter  of  the  Duke  of 
Orleans  and  the  son  of  Count  d'Artois,  the  Duke  d' Angouleme.  An  income 
of  four  hundred  thousand  francs  ($80,000)  per  annum  had  been  settled  upon 
the  prospective  bride.  She  had  received  the  congratulations  of  the  court, 
and  the  foreign  ministers  had  been  authorized  to  communicate  to  their  re- 
spective courts  the  approaching  nuptials,  when  Marie  Antoinette,  alarmed 
by  the  feeble  health  of  her  two  sons,  and  thinking  that  the  son  of  the  Count 
d'Artois  might  yet  become  heir  to  the  throne  of  France,  broke  off  the  match, 
and  decided  that  her  daughter,  instead  of  the  daughter  of  the  Duke  of  Or- 
leans, should  marry  the  5'oung  Duke  d' Angouleme.:}: 

The  Duke  of  Orleans  was  now  ready  to  adopt  any  measures  of  desperation 
for  the  sake  of  revenge.  Though  one  of  the  highest  and  most  opulent  of  the 
aristocrats  of  Europe,  he  was  eager  to  throw  himself  into  the  arms  of  the 
popular  party,  and  to  lead  them  in  any  measures  of  violence  in  their  assaults 
upon  the  crown. § 

When  Louis  XVI.  met  the  Parh'ament  to  secure  the  registry  of  the  edict 
for  a  new  loan,  a  strong  opposition  was  found  organized  against  him,  and  he 
encountered  silence  and  gloomy  looks.  The  king  had  not  intended  to  hold 
a  bed  of  justice  with  his  commands,  but  merely  a  royal  sitting  for  friendly  con- 
ference. But  the  antagonism  was  so  manifest  that  he  was  compelled  to  ap- 
peal to  his  kingly  authority,  and  to  ordei-  the  registry  of  the  edict.  The 
Duke  of  Orleans  rose,  and  with  flushed  cheek  and  defiant  tone,  entered  a 
protest.  Two  members,  his  confederates,  ventured  to  sustain  him.  This 
insult  royalty  could  not  brook.  The  duke  was  immediately  sent  into  exile 
to  one  of  his  rural  estates,  and  the  two  other  nobles  were  sent  to  prison. 

*  Cnrlylo,  French  Revolution,  vol.  i.,  j).  48. 

t  Biofrrnphie  Moderne. 

"  Off  Uslmnt  some  naval  thunder  is  heard.  In  the  course  of  which  did  our  young  prince  hide 
in  the  hold  I  Our  poor  young  prince  gets  his  opera  plaudits  changed  into  mocking  tehees,  and 
can  not  become  Grand  Admiral— the  source  to  him  of  woes  which  one  may  call  endless."— Car- 
li/le,  French  Reroliition,  vol.  i.,  p.  43. 

t  This  was  the  priiifcss  who  subsequently  experienced  such  terrible  suffering  in  the  prison  of 
the  Temple,  with  her  brother,  the  dauphin.  She  was  released  by  Na|)olcon,  and  aftcnvard  mar- 
ried the  Duke  d'AngoulC-me.  §  Desodoards,  vol.  i.,  p.  28.     Thiers,  vol.  i.,  p.  23. 


1789.]  THE  ASSEMBLY  OF  THE  NOTABLES.  71 

A  fierce  conflict  was  now  commenced  between  the  king  and  the  Parliament. 
The  Parliament  passed  a  decree  condemning  arbitrary  arrests.  The  king,  by 
an  order  in  council,  canceled  the  decree.  The  Parliament  reaffirmed  it. 
The  king  was  exasperated  to  the  highest  degree,  but,  with  the  united  Parlia- 
ment and  the  popular  voice  against  him,  he  did  not  dare  to  proceed  to  ex- 
treme measures.  Louis  XIV.  would  have  sent  every  man  of  them  to  the 
Bastille  or  the  scaffold.     But  the  days  of  Louis  XIV.  were  no  more. 

It  may  at  first  thought  seem  strange  that  in  this  conflict  the  people  should 
have  sided  with  the  Parliament.  But  the  power  of  the  crown  was  the  great 
power  they  had  to  dread,  and  which  they  wished  to  see  humbled.  It  was  to 
them  a  matter  of  much  more  moment  that  the  despotism  of  the  court  should  be 
curtailed  than  that  the  one  act  of  taxation  should  be  passed  in  their  favor. 
Men  of  far-reaching  sagacity  must  have  guided  the  populace  to  so  wise  a  de- 
cision. Inequality  of  taxation  was  but  one  of  the  innumerable  wrongs  to 
which  the  people  were  exposed.  What  they  needed  was  a  thorough  reform 
in  the  government  which  should  correct  all  abuses.  To  attain  this  it  was 
first  indispensable  that  despotism  should  be  struck  down.  Therefore  their 
sympathies  were  with  the  Parliament  in  its  struggle  against  the  crown,  though 
it  so  happened  that  the  conflict  arose  upon  a  point  adverse  to  the  popular 
interest. 

The  Duke  of  Orleans  began  seriously  to  contemplate  the  dethronement  of 
his  cousin  and  the  usurpation  of  the  crown.  With  almost  boundless  wealth 
at  his  command,  and  placing  himself  at  the  head  of  the  popular  party,  now 
rising  with  such  resistless  power,  he  thought  the  plan  not  difficult  of  accom- 
plishment. He  had  traveled  in  England,  had  invested  large  sums  there, 
had  formed  friendship  with  the  sons  of  the  king,  the  Prince  of  Wales  and 
the  Duke  of  York.  The  court  of  St.  James  was  bitterly  exasperated  against 
the  court  of  Louis  XVI.  for  aiding  in  the  emancipation  of  America.  The 
Duke  of  Orleans  consequently  doubted  not  that  he  could  rely  upon  the  friend- 
ship of  England  in  the  introduction  of  a  new  dynast}''  to  France.^-' 

And  now  the  parliaments  which  had  been  organized  in  many  of  the  prov- 
inces made  common  cause  with  the  Parliament  of  Paris,  and  sent  in  their 
remonstrances  against  the  despotism  of  the  crown.  Gloom  now  pervaded 
the  saloons  of  Versailles.  Marie  Antoinette,  with  pale  cheek  and  anxious 
brow,  wandered  through  the  apartments  dejected  and  almost  despairing. 
Groves  and  gardens  surrounded  her  embellished  with  flowers  and  statues 
and  fountains.  The  palace  which  was  her  home  surpassed  in  architectural 
grandeur  and  in  all  the  appliances  of  voluptuous  indulgence  any  abode 
which  had  ever  before  been  reared  upon  earth.  Obsequious  servants  and 
fawning  courtiers  anticipated  her  wishes,  and  her  chariot  with  its  glittering 
outriders  swept  like  a  meteor  through  the  enchanting  drives  which  art,  aided 
by  the  wealth  of  a  realm,  had  constructed,  and  yet  probably  there  was  not  a 
woman  in  the  whole  realm,  in  garret  or  hut  or  furrowed  field,  who  bore  a 
heavier  heart  than  that  which  throbbed  within  the  bosom  of  the  queen. 
The  king  was  a  harmless,  inoffensive,  weak-minded  man,  spending  most  of 
his  time  at  the  forge.  It  was  well  understood  that  the  queen,  energetic  and 
authoritative,  was  the  real  head  of  the  government,  and  that  every  act  of  vigor 
originated  with  her.     She  consequently  became  peculiarly  obnoxious  to  the 

*  Desodoards,  vol.  i.,  p.  50. 


72  THE  FRENCH  EEVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  VII. 

Parliament,  and  tbrougli  them  to  the  people ;  and  Paris  was  flooded  with  the 
vilest  calumnies  against  her. 

There  was  at  that  time  fluttering  about  Versailles  a  dissolute  woman  of 
remarkable  beauty,  the  Countess  Lamotte.  She  forged  notes  against  the 
(jueen,  and  purchased  a  very  magnificent  pearl  necklace  at  the  price  of  three 
hundred  thousand  dollars.  Cardinal  Eohan  was  involved  in  the  intrigue. 
The  transaction  was  noised  through  all  Europe.  The  queen  was  accused  of 
being  engaged  in  a  swindling  transaction  with  a  profligate  woman  to  cheat  a 
jeweler,  and  was  also  accused  of  enormous  extravagance  in  wishing  to  add 
to  the  already  priceless  jewels  of  the  crown  others  to  the  amount  of  three 
hundred  thousand  dollars.  The  queen  was  innocent ;  but  the  public  mind 
exasperated  wished  to  believe  all  evil  of  her.  Men,  haggard  and  hungry, 
and  without  employment ;  women  ragged  and  starving,  and  with  their  starv- 
ing children  in  their  arms,  were  ever  repeating  the  foul  charge  against  the 
queen  as  a  thief,  an  accomplice  with  a  prostitute,  one  who  was  willing  to  see 
the  people  starve  if  she  might  but  hang  pearls  about  her  neck.  The  story- 
was  so  universally  credited,  and  created  such  wide-spread  exasperation,  that 
Talleyrand  remarked,  "  Mind  that  miserable  affair  of  the  necklace.  I  should 
be  nowise  surprised  if  it  should  overturn  the  French  monarchy," 

In  addition  to  all  this  the  report  was  spread  abroad  that  the  children  of 
Marie  Antoinette  were  illegitimate ;  that  the  king  had  not  sufficient  capacity 
to  reign ;  that  his  next  brother,  called  Monsieur,  subsequently  Louis  XVIIL, 
was  engaged  in  a  conspiracy  with  the  Parliament  to  eject  Louis  XVI.  from 
the  throne,  and  to  establish  a  government  of  the  nobles,  of  which  ^Monsieur 
should  be  the  nominal  head.  It  is  by  no  means  improbable  that  this  plan 
was  formed.  It  will  account  for  many  of  the  actions  of  the  nobles  during 
the  first  stages  of  the  Eevolution.* 

The  second  brother  of  the  king.  Count  d'Artois,  a  very  elegant  and  ac- 
complished man  of  fashion,  fond  of  pleasure,  and  with  congenial  tastes  with 
the  young  and  beautiful  queen,  was  accused,  though  probably  without  found- 
ation, of  being  her  paramour  and  the  father  of  her  children.  He  had  erect- 
ed, just  outside  the  walls  of  Paris,  in  the  woods  of  Boulogne,  a  beautiful  lit- 
tle palace  which  he  called  Bagatelle.  This  was  the  seat  of  the  most  refined 
voluptuousness  and  of  the  most  costly  indulgence. 

The  queen  now  knew  not  which  way  to  turn  from  the  invectives  which 
were  so  mercilessly  showered  upon  her.  It  was  in  vain  to  attempt  an  an- 
swer. Her  lofty  spirit  so  far  sustained  her  as  to  enable  her  in  public  to  ap- 
pear with  dignity.  But  in  her  boudoir  she  wept  in  all  the  anguish  of  a 
crushed  and  despairing  heart.  "  One  morning  at  Trianon,"  writes  Madame 
Campan,  "  I  went  into  tlie  queen's  chamber  when  she  was  in  bed.  There 
were  letters  lying  upon  her  bed  and  she  was  weeping  bitterly.  Her  tears 
were  mingled  with  sobs,  which  she  occasionally  interrupted  by  exclamations 
of  '  Ah  f  that  Iioere  (lead.  Wretches  !  monsters  !  ichat  have  I  done  to  them  T  I 
oficred  her  orange-flower- water  and  ether.  ^  Leave  me,  if  you  love  me;  it 
icould  he  belter  to  kill  me  at  once.''  At  this  moment  she  threw  her  arm  over 
my  shoulder  and  began  weeping  afresh. "f 

*  Ilistoire  Phil,  ilo  In  Rev.  do  Fr.  pnr  Ant.  Fantin  Dcsodoards,  vol.  i.,  p.  4.'). 
t  Mfinoirs  of  Marie  Antoinette,  l)y  Madame  Campan,  vol.  i.,  p.  243. 


1789.]  THE  ASSEMBLY  OF  THE  NOTABLES.  73 

Parliament  had  registered  the  edict  for  a  loan  of  one  hundred  millions  of 
dollars.  It  would  be  no  burden  to  them.  The  people  alone  were  to  be 
taxed  for  the  debt.  But  public  credit  was  dead.  No  one  would  lend. 
Brienne  was  also  assailed  with  lampoons  and  caricatures  and  envenomed  in- 
vectives, until,  baited  and  bayed  from  every  direction,  he  became  almost 
distracted.*  Burning  with  fever  and  with  tremulous  nerves,  he  paced  his 
chamber-floor,  ready  for  any  deed  of  desperation  which  could  extricate  him 
from  his  woe.  All  this  the  Parliament  in  Paris  and  the  twelve  parliaments 
in  the  departments  enjoyed,  for  it  was  the  object  of  the  nobles,  who  mainly 
formed  these  bodies,  to  wrest  back  from  the  monarchy  that  feudal  power 
which  energetic  kings  had  wrested  from  them.  The  people  were  ready  to 
sustain  the  nobles,  though  their  enemies,  in  their  attack  upon  the  crown,  and 
the  nobles  were  also  eager  to  call  in  the  people  to  aid  them  in  their  perilous 
conflict.  Some  of  the  nobles,  however,  more  far-sighted,  strongly  opposed 
the  calling  of  the  States-General.  The  majority,  however,  prevailed,  and 
decreed  to  call  a  meeting  of  the  states,  but  with  the  proviso  that  five  years 
were  to  elapse  before  they  should  be  convened. 

Brienne  was  now  goaded  to  desperation.  lie  determined  to  break  down 
the  parliaments.  Secretly  he  matured  a  plan  for  the  formation  of  a  series 
of  minor  courts,  where  all  small  causes  could  be  tried,  and  a  superior  court 
for  registering  edicts.  Thus  there  would  be  absolutely  nothing  left  for  the 
parliaments  to  do,  and  they  could  be  abolished  as  useless.  These  courts, 
the  superior  to  be  called  the  Plenary  Court  and  the  others  Grand  BaiUiages, 
were  to  be  composed  of  courtiers  carefully  selected,  who  would  be  subservi- 
ent to  the  wishes  of  the  king.f 

It  was  a  shrewd  measure,  but  one  which  required  the  strictest  secrecy  in 
its  execution.  Such  a  coup  d'etat  must  come  as  a  sudden  stroke,  or  so  pow- 
erful a  body  as  the  Parliament  would  be  able  to  ward  off  the  blow.  The 
whole  kingdom  was  then  divided  into  a  number  of  provinces,  over  each  of 
which  a  governor,  called  an  intendant,  presided,  appointed  by  the  king. 
The  royal  edict  was  to  be  placed  secretly  in  the  hands  of  each  of  these  in- 
tendants,  with  minute  directions  how  to  act,  and  they  were  promptly  and 
secretly  to  organize  the  courts,  so  that  upon  an  appointed  day  all  should  be 
accomplished,  the  new  machinery  in  motion,  and  the  power  of  the  parlia- 
ments annihilated.  So  important  was  it  that  profound  secrecy  should  be 
observed  that  printers  were  conveyed  in  disguise  by  night  to  one  of  the  sa- 
loons of  Versailles,  where  they  brought  their  tj^pe  and  put  up  their  press  to 
print  the  royal  edict.  Sentries  stood  at  the  doors  and  the  windows  of  their 
work-room  and  their  food  was  handed  in  to  them.  M.  d'Espremenil,  one  of 
the  most  active  and  influential  members  of  Parliament,  suspecting  some 
stratagem,  succeeded,  through  a  bribe  of  twenty-five  hundred  dollars,  in  ob- 
taining a  copy  of  the  edict.  In  the  greatest  excitement  he  hastened  back  to 
Paris  and  presented  himself  in  Parliament  with  the  edict  in  his  hand.     It 

*  "Paris  is  what  they  call  in  figurative  speech  flooded  with  pamphlets  {regorgd  cks  brochw-es), 
flooded  and  eddying  again.  Hot  deluge  from  so  many  patriot  ready-writers,  all  at  the  fervid  cr 
boiling  point ;  each  ready-writer  now  in  the  hour  of  eruption  going  like  an  Iceland  geyser ! 
Against  which  what  can  a  judicious  friend,  Morellet,  do ;  a  Rivarol,  an  imnily  Linguet  (well  paid 
for  it),  spouting  cold?'" — Carhjie,  vol.  i.,  p.  9L  t  ^lontgaillard,  tome  i.,  p.  405. 


74  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  YII. 

was  the  3d  of  May,  1788.  The  members  listened  with  breathless  eagerness 
to  the  reading  of  the  paper,  which  was  to  their  body  a  death-warrant.  The 
edict  required  all  the  military  to  be  assembled  on  the  appointed  day,  ready 
for  action.  The  intendants  were  to  march  an  armed  force  to  those  cities  of 
the  provinces  where  parliaments  had  been  in  session,  and,  when  the  new 
courts  were  to  be  organized,  to  enforce  the  decree.  None  of  the  intendants 
or  commanders  of  the  troops  knew  what  was  to  be  done,  but  confidential 
agents  of  the  king  were  to  be  sent  to  all  these  places,  that  at  the  same  day 
and  on  the  same  hour  the  order  might  be  received  and  executed  all  over 
France. 

There  succeeded  this  reading  at  first  a  universal  outbreak  of  indignation. 
They  then  took  an  oath  to  resist,  at  the  peril  of  their  lives,  all  measures 
tending  to  the  overthrow  of  the  old  French  parliaments.  The  tidings  that 
the  plot  had  been  detected  were  borne  speedily  to  the  court  at  Versailles. 
Fierce  passion  now  added  fury  to  the  battle.  Two  httres  de  cachet  were  is- 
sued to  seize  D'Espremenil  and  another  active  member  of  the  opposition, 
Goislard,  and  silence  them  in  the  Bastille.  Warned  of  their  danger  they 
escaped  through  scuttles  and  over  the  roofs  of  houses  to  the  Palace  of  Jus- 
tice, dispatched  runners  in  every  direction  to  summon  the  members,  and 
then,  laying  aside  their  disguise,  assumed  their  robes  of  office.  An  hour 
had  not  elapsed  ere  Parliament  was  in  session  and  all  Paris  in  commotion. 
Parliament  immediately  voted  that  the  two  members  should  not  be  given 
up,  and  that  their  session  was  permanent  and  subject  to  no  adjournment  un- 
til the  pursuit  of  the  two  victims  was  relinquished.  All  the  avenues  of  the 
Palace  of  Justice  were  inundated  with  a  throng  of  excited  citizens,  bewil- 
dered by  this  open  and  deadly  antagonism  between  the  Parliament  and  the 
court.  All  the  day  and  all  the  night  and  all  the  next  day,  for  thirty-six 
hours,  the  session  of  stormy  debate  and  fierce  invective  continued.  Again 
gloomy  night  settled  down  over  sleepless  Paris.  But  suddenly  there  was 
heard  the  roll  of  drums  and  the  bugle-blast  and  the  tramp  of  armed  men. 
Captain  d'Agoust,  at  the  head  of  the  royal  troops,  marched  from  Versailles 
with  infantry,  cavalry,  and  artillery.  Sternly  and  rapidly  by  torchlight  the 
soldiers  advanced,  clearing  their  way  through  the  multitudes  crowding  the 
court-yards  and  avenues  of  the  Palace  of  Justice.* 

At  the  head  of  a  file  of  soldiers  with  gleaming  bayonets  and  loaded  mus- 
kets, D'Agoust,  a  soldier  of  cast-iron  face  and  heart,  mounted  the  stairs, 
strode  with  the  loud  clatter  of  arms  into  the  hall,  and  demanded,  in  the 
name  of  the  king,  M.  Duval  d'Esprdmdnil  and  M.  Goislard  de  ]\Ionsabert. 
As  he  did  not  know  these  persons  he  called  upon  them  to  come  forward 
and  surrender  themselves.  For  a  moment  there  was  profound  silence,  and 
then  a  voice  was  heard,  "  We  arc  all  D'Espremenils  and  Monsaberts."  For 
a  time  there  was  great  tumult,  as  many  voices  repeated  the  cry. 

Order  being  restored,  the  president  inquired  whether  D'Agoust  will  em- 

*  The  foUowitiR  wns  the  commission  of  D'Aponst  :  "  J'ordonne  nn  sieur  d'Apoiist,  cnpitaine 
de  mcs  pardes  frniKjaiscs,  do  so  roiulrc  nu  j.alais  a  la  tete  do  six  comi.anies,  d'cn  occiiper  toutes 
les  avenues,  ct  d'nrreter  dans  hiprand  chambrc  de  mon  j)arlemcnt,  oii  imitout  aillieurs,  messieurs 
Duval  d'Esprc-mi-nil  et  Goislard,  conseillers,  jmur  los  rcmettre  entre  les  mains  des  oflScicrs  de  la 
prdvOte  do  riiOtcl." — Desodoanls,  tome  i.,  p.  82. 


1788.]  THE  ASSEMBLY  OF  THE  NOTABLES.  75 

ploy  violence.  "  I  am  honored,"  the  captain  replies,  "  with  his  majesty's 
commission  to  execute  his  majesty's  order.  I  would  gladly  execute  the 
order  without  violence,  but  at  all  events  I  shall  execute  it.  I  leave  the 
senate  for  a  few  minutes  to  deliberate  which  method  they  prefer."  With 
his  guard  he  left  the  hall. 

After  a  brief  interval  the  sturdy  captain  returned  with  his  well-armed 
retinue.  "  We  yield  to  force,"  said  the  two  counselors,  as  they  surrendered 
themselves.  Their  brethren  gathered  around  their  arrested  companions  for 
a  parting  embrace,  but  the  soldiers  cut  short  the  scene  by  siezing  them  and 
leading  them  down,  through  winding  passages,  to  a  rear  gate,  where  two 
carriages  were  in  waiting.  Each  was  placed  in  a  carriage  with  menacing 
bayonets  at  his  side.  The  populace  looked  on  in  silence.  They  dared  not 
yet  speak.  But  they  were  learning  a  lesson.  D'Espremenil  was  taken  to  an 
ancient  fortress  on  one  of  the  Isles  of  Hieres,  in  the  Mediterranean,  about 
fourteen  miles  from  Toulon.     Goislard  was  conveyed  to  a  prison  in  Lyons. 

D'Agoust,  having  dispatched  his  prisoners,  returned  to  the  Hall  of  As- 
sembly, and  ordered  the  members  of  Parliament  to  disj3erse.  They  were 
compelled  to  file  out,  one  hundred  and  sixty -five  in  number,  beneath  the 
bayonets  of  the  grenadiers.  D  Agoust  locked  the  doors,  put  the  keys  into 
his  pocket,  and,  with  his  battalions,  marched  back  to  Versailles. 

The  Parliament  of  Paris  was  now  turned  into  the  street.  But  still  there 
was  no  money  in  the  treasury.  The  provincial  parliaments  were  roused, 
and  had  matured  their  plans  to  resist  the  new  courts.  The  8th  of  May  ar- 
rived, when  the  decree,  now  every  where  promulgated,  was  to  be  put  into 
execution.  The  intendants  and  the  king's  commissioners  found,  at  all 
points,  organized  opposition.  The  provincial  noblesse  united  with  the  par- 
liaments, for  it  was  now  but  a  struggle  of  the  nobility  against  the  unlimited 
power  of  the  crown.  A  deputation  of  twelve  was  sent  from  the  Parliament 
of  Breton,  with  a  remonstrance,  to  Versailles.  They  were  all  consigned  to 
the  Bastille.  A  second  deputation,  much  larger,  was  sent.  Agents  of  the 
king  met  them,  and,  by  menaces,  drove  them  back.  A  third,  still  more 
numerous,  was  appointed,  to  approach  Versailles  by  different  roads.  The 
king  refused  to  receive  them.  They  held  a  meeting  in  Paris,  and  invited 
La  Fayette  and  all  patriotic  Bretons  in  Paris  to  advise  with  them.*  This 
was  the  origin  of  the  Jacobin  Club. 

Eight  parliaments  were  exiled.  But  at  Grenoble  they  refused  to  surren- 
der themselves  to  the  lettres  de  cachet.  The  tocsin  pealed  forth  the  alarm, 
and  booming  cannon  roused  the  masses  in  the  city  and  upon  the  mountains 
to  rush,  with  such  weapons  as  they  could  seize,  to  protect  the  Parliament. 
The  royal  general  was  compelled  to  capitulate  and  to  retire,  leaving  his 
commission  unexecuted.  The  nobles  had  appealed  to  the  masses,  and  armed 
them  to  aid  in  resisting  the  king,  and  thus  had  taught  them  their  power. 
It  seems  as  though  supernatural  intelligence  was  guiding  events  toward  the 
crisis  of  a  terrible  revolution.  Four  of  the  parliaments  were  thus  enabled 
to  bid  defiance  to  the  kingly  power. 

The  attempt  to  establish  the  new  courts  was  a  total  failure.  The  clergy, 
the  nobility,  and  the  people  were  all  against  it.     A  universal  storm  of 

*  Carljle,  vol.  i.,  p.  101. 


76  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ClIAP.  VII. 

hatred  and  contempt  fell  upon  all  who  accepted  offices  in  those  courts.  The 
Plenary  Court  held  but  one  session,  and  then  expired  amid  the  hisses  of 
all  classes.     The  king  seemed  suddenly  bereft  of  authority. 

"  Let  a  commissioner  of  the  king,"  says  Weber,  "enter  one  of  these  parlia- 
ments to  have  an  edict  registered,  the  whole  tribunal  will  disappear,  leaving 
the  commissioner  alone  with  the  clerk  and  president.  The  edict  registered 
and  the  commissioner  gone,  the  whole  tribunal  hastens  back  to  declare  such 
registration  nuU.  The  highways  are  covered  with  deputations  of  the  par- 
liaments, proceeding  to  Versailles  to  have  their  registers  expunged  by  the 
king's  hand,  or  returning  home  to  cover  a  new  page  with  new  resolutions 
still  more  audacious."* 

Still  there  was  no  money,  and  Brienne  was  in  despair.  Wistfully  he 
looked  to  his  embowered  chateau  at  Brienne,  with  its  silent  groves  and  ver- 
dant lawn.  There,  while  these  scenes  were  transpiring,  had  sat,  almost  be- 
neath the  shadow  of  his  castle,  "a  dusky -complexioned,  taciturn  boy,  under 
the  name  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte."  This  boy,  forgetful  of  the  sports  of 
childhood,  was  gazing  with  intensest  interest  upon  the  conflict,  and  by  un- 
tiring study,  night  and  day,  was  girding  himself  with  strength  to  come  forth 
into  the  arena.  He  had  already  taken  his  side  as  the  inexorable  foe  of  feud- 
al privilege  and  the  friend  of  popular  rights.  He  had  already  incurred  the 
frown  of  his  teachers  for  the  energy  with  which  he  advocated  in  his  themes 
the  doctrine  of  equality.  "The  themes  of  Napoleon,"  said  one  of  his 
teachers,  "  are  like  flaming  missiles  ejected  from  a  volcano." 

In  these  fearful  scenes,  ominous  of  approaching  floods  and  earthquakes, 
God,  in  the  awful  mystery  of  his  providence,  took  an  energetic  part.  On 
the  13th  of  July  of  this  year,  1788,  the  whole  country,  for  one  hundred  and 
twenty  miles  around  Paris,  was  laid  waste  by  one  of  the  most  frightful  hail- 
storms which  ever  beat  down  a  harvest.  Not  a  green  blade  was  left. 
Gaunt  famine  was  inevitably  to  stride  over  distracted,  impoverished  France. 
Consternation  oppressed  all  hearts.  It  was  now  hastily  decided  that  the 
States-General  should  be  assembled  in  the  following  month  of  May.  The 
queen  was  that  day  standing  at  one  of  the  windows  of  Versailles,  pallid, 
trembling,  and  lost  in  gloomy  thought.  She  held  in  her  hand  a  cup  of  cof- 
fee, which,  mechanically,  she  seemed  to  sip.  Beckoning  to  Madame  Campan, 
she  said  to  her, 

"  Great  God !  what  a  piece  of  news  will  be  made  public  to-day.  The  king 
grants  States-General.  'Tis  a  first  beat  of  the  dnmi  of  ill  omen  for  France. 
This  noblesse  will  ruin  us."t 

Bricnnc,  who  now  occupied  the  post  of  prime  minister,  wrote  to  M.  Necker 
entreating  him  to  return  to  the  post  of  Controller  of  the  Finance.  Necker 
refused.  He  was  not  willing  to  take  charge  of  the  finances  with  Bricnnc 
prime  minister.  Bankruptcy,  with  its  national  disgrace  and  wide-spreading 
misery,  was  at  hand.  On  the  16th  of  August  an  edict  was  issued  that  all 
payments  at  the  royal  treasury  should  be  made  three  fifths  in  cash,  and  the 
remammg  two  fifths  in  promissory  notes  bearing  interest  As  the  treasury 
was  without  credit  the  notes  were  comparatively  valueless.  This  was  virtual 
bankruptcy,  in  which  the  state  offered  to  jiay  sLxty  cents  on  the  dollar.    The 

*  Weber,  vol.  i.,  p.  27:5.  ^  |  Campan,  vol.  iii,  r-  101. 


1788.]  THE  APPEAL  TO  THE  PEOPLE.  77 

announcement  of  tliis  edict  rolled  another  surge  of  excitement  and  conster- 
nation over  the  kingdom. 

Count  d'Artois  called  upon  the  queen  and  informed  her  of  the  terrible 
agitation  pervading  the  public  mind.  She  sat  down  in  silence  and  wept. 
Brienne,  pale,  haggard,  and  trembling,  frightened  by  the  storm  now  raging, 
having  contrived  to  secure  for  himself  property  to  the  amount  of  one  hund- 
red and  fifty  thousand  dollars  a  year,  gave  in  his  resignation,  entered  his  car- 
riage and  drove  off  to  Italy,  leaving  the  king  to  struggle  alone  against  the 
Kevolution.* 

During  these  conflicts  for  power  between  the  king  and  the  nobles  the 
moan  of  twenty -five  millions  crushed  beneath  the  chariot-wheels  of  feudal 
aristocracy  ascended,  not  unheeded,  to  the  ear  of  Heaven.  The  hour  of 
retribution  if  not  of  recompense  approached.  For  weary  ages  the  people 
had  waited  for  its  coming  with  hope  ever  deferred.  Generation  after  gene- 
ration had  come  and  gone,  and  still  fathers  and  mothers,  sons  and  daughters 
were  toiling  in  the  furrows  and  in  the  shop,  exclaiming,  "  0  God,  how  long !" 
The  dawn  after  the  apparently  interminable  night  was  now  at  hand,  but  it 
was  the  dawn  not  of  a  bright  but  of  a  lurid  day.  France  at  this  time  pre- 
sented the  spectacle  of  millions  in  misery,  of  some  thousands  obtaining  by 
the  severest  toil  the  bare  necessaries  of  life,  and  of  a  few  hundred  rioting  in 
wealth  and  luxury. 


CHAPTEE  VIII. 

THE  APPEAL  TO  THE  PEOPLE. 


EecalJ  of  Necker. — Reassembling  the  Notables. — Pamphlet  of  the  Abbe  Sieyes. — Vote  of  the 
King's  Brother. — His  supposed  Motive. — The  Basis  of  Representation. — Arrangements  for 
the  Meeting  of  the  States. — Statement  of  Grievances. — Mirabeau ;  his  Menace. — Sympathy 
of  the  Curates  with  the  People. — Remonstrance  of  the  Nobles. — First  Riot. — Meeting  of  the 
States-General. — New  Effort  of  the  privileged  Classes. 

The  king  again  turned  to  Necker,  as  one  strong  in  the  confidence  of  the 
people.  The  announcement  of  his  recall  filled  France  with  enthusiasm. 
Guns  were  fired,  bells  rung,  and  masses  of  people  surged  through  the  streets 
of  Paris  and  of  Versailles,  shouting  exultingly.  It  was  the  24:th  of  August, 
1788.  Necker's  first  exclamation,  at  the  intimation  of  his  recall,  was,  "Ah! 
that  I  could  recall  the  fifteen  months  of  the  Archbishop  of  Toulouse."  He 
found  but  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  francs  ($50,000)  in  the  treasur}-. 
Though  disorder  and  ruin  had  made  rapid  progress,  the  reputation  of 
ISTecker  was  such  that  he  immediately  had  loans  offered  him,  and  the  pub- 
lic funds  rose  thirty  per  cent.f 

Preparations  were  immediately  made  for  the  assembling  of  the  States- 
General,  and  the  public  announcement  was  given  that  it  was  to  be  convened 
on  the  27th  of  April.    There  had  been  no  meeting  of  the  States-General  for 

*  Brienne,  in  addition  to  the  Archbishopric  of  Toulouse,  was  appointed  Archbishop  of  Sens, 
and  Louis  XVI.  obtained  for  him  from  Pius  VI.  a  cardinal's  hat.  The  Cardinal  of  Lome'mc,  as 
he  was  then  called,  subsequently  returned  to  France,  where  he  was  arrested,  and,  Feb.  16,  1794, 
was  found  dead  on  the  floor  of  his  cell,  in  the  G7th  year  of  his  age. — £>ic.  A?n. 

t  Alison,  Hist,  of  Europe,  vol.  i.,  p.  63. 


78  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  YIII. 

one  hundred  and  scventj-five  years,  and  the  question  now  rose,  How  shall 
the  members  be  elected?  who  shall  be  voters?  of  how  many  shall  the  body 
be  composed  ?  what  proportion  shall  be  from  the  privileged  and  what  from 
the  unprivileged  class  ?  The  learned  bodies  and  popular  writers  were  in- 
vited to  express  their  views  upon  these  points.  Thousands  of  political 
pamphlets  immediately  appeared,  and  every  mind  in  the  nation  was  roused  * 
The  all-important  and  most  agitating  question  was,  What  proportion  shall 
the  people  occupy  in  this  assembly?  The  unprivileged  class  composed 
nmety-eight  hundredths  of  the  nation ;  the  privileged  class  two  hundredths. 
And  yet  the  privileged  class  demanded  inexorably  that  they  should  have 
two  thirds  of  the  representatives,  and  the  people  one  third.  Tliis  would 
place  the  people  in  a  hopeless  minority,  and  leave  them  entirely  at  the 
mercy  of  the  privileged  class. 

To  settle  these  agitating  questions  the  ISTotables  were  again  summoned 
on  the  6th  of  September,  1788.  It  was  the  same  body  which  Calonne  had 
called  together.  Parliament  had  firmly  declared  in  favor  of  allowing  the 
people  a  representation  of  but  one  third,  giving  the  nobles  a  third  and  the 
clergy  a  third.  The  king  and  Keeker  were  fully  assured  that  such  an 
arrangement  could  by  no  means  satisfy  the  nation — that  it  would  be  a 
mockery  of  the  people  which  would  only  exasperate  them.  They  hoped 
that  these  Notables,  carefully  selected,  though  from  the  aristocracy,  would 
be  willing  to  give  ninety-eight  of  the  people  at  least  an  equal  voice  with 
two  of  the  aristocracy. 

The  Abbe  Sieyes  had  written  a  pamphlet  which  had  produced  a  pro- 
found impression  throughout  France.  He  thus  asked,  and  answered,  three 
questions:  "What  is  the  Third  Estate?  The  whole  people.  What  has  it 
hitherto  been  in  our  form  of  government  ?  Nothing.  What  does  it  want  ? 
To  become  something." 

But  the  Notables  were  now  alarmed,  and  a  warm  discussion  ensued  be- 
tween the  advocatcsof  ancient  traditions  and  of  national  justice.  One  alone 
of  the  several  committees  into  which  the  Notables  were  divided  voted  in 
favor  of  allowing  the  people  an  equal  representation  with  the  privileged 
classes.  Monsieur,  afterward  Louis  XYIII.,  was  chairman  of  that  commit- 
tee. When  the  king  was  informed  of  this  vote  he  remarked,  "Let  them 
add  my  vote :  I  give  it  willingly."f  After  a  month's  session,  the  Notables, 
on  the  12th  of  December,  ha\^ng  accomplished  nothing,  vanished,  to  appear 
no  more  forever. 

The  question  was  still  unsettled,  and  the  clamor  was  growing  louder  and 
more  exciting.  It  was  a  vital  struggle.  To  give  the  people  an  equal  voice 
was  death  to  aristocratic  usurpation.     To  give  the  pri\^leged  class  two 

*  "  For,  behold,  this  monstrous  twenty-million  class,  hitherto  the  dumb  sheep  which  these 
others  had  to  aprcc  about  the  sheering  of,  is  now  also  arising  with  hoi)os !  It  has  ceased  or  is 
ceasinp  to  be  dund).  It  speaks  throuf-li  pami)hlets.  It  is  a  sheer  snowing  of  pamphlets,  like  to 
snow  up  the  government  thoroughfares."— C«r/y/c,  vol.  i.,  y.  112. 

t  Lftbaume,  vol.  ii.,  p.  32.S. 

It  was  supposed  that  the  Count  of  Provence,  afterward  Louis  XVIII.,  was  then  intriguing  to 
gain  popularity,  that  he  might  dethrone  his  brother  and  take  his  place.  "Lo  Comte  de  Pro- 
vence," writes  Villaunie,  "intrigoit  et  j.rolitait  des  fautes  du  roi,  pour  so  frayer  un  chcmin  vers 
lo  tronc." — IJist.  de  Rev.  Fr.,par  Villaumd,  vol.  i.,  p.  13. 


1789.]  I'HE  APPEAL  TO  THE  PEOPLE,  79 

votes,  to  the  people  one,  hopelessly  perpetuated  abuses.  The  question  could 
only  be  settled  by  the  authority  of  the  king.  On  the  27th  of  December 
Necker  made  a  report  to  the  king  recommending  that  the  unprivileged 
class  should  send  the  same  number  of  delegates  as  the  privileged.*  In  ac- 
cordance with  this  report,  on  the  24:th  of  January,  1789,  the  royal  edict  was 
issued.f  The  dissatisfaction  on  the  part  of  the  nobles  amounted  almost  to 
rebellion.  In  Brittany  the  nobles,  who  had  sent  in  a  strong  protest,  refused 
to  send  any  delegates  to  the  States-General,  hoping  probably  that  the  nobles 
and  the  clergy  generally  would  follow  their  example,  and  that  thus  the 
measure  might  be  frustrated. 

But  events  ran  onward  like  the  sweep  of  ocean  tides.  Nothing  could  re- 
tard them.  Preparations  were  made  for  the  elections.  Among  the  people 
every  man  over  twenty-five  years  of  age  who  paid  a  tax  was  allowed  to 
vote.:}:  A  more  sublime  spectacle  earth  has  rarely  witnessed.  Twenty -five 
millions  of  people  suddenly  gained  the  right  of  popular  suffrage.  Between 
five  and  six  milUons  of  votes  were  cast.  The  city  of  Paris  was  divided  into 
sixty  districts,  each  of  which  chose  two  electors,  and  these  electors  were  to 
choose  twenty  deputies.  The  people  were  also  enjoined  to  send  in  a  writ- 
ten statement  of  their  grievances,  with  instructions  to  the  deputies  respect- 
ing the  reforms  which  they  wished  to  have  introduced.  These  statements 
of  grievances,  now  existing  in  thirty-six  compact  folio  volumes,  present  ap- 
palling testimony  to  the  outrages  which  the  people  had  for  ages  been  en- 
during. "With  propriety,  dignity,  and  marvelous  unanimity  of  purpose  the 
people  assembled  at  the  polls. § 

There  were  a  few  of  the  nobles  who  were  in  favor  of  reform.  In  Prov- 
ence the  nobility  in  their  provincial  parliament  protested  against  the  royal 
edict,  declaring  that  such  innovations  as  were  contemplated  tended  to  "im- 
pair the  dignity  of  the  nobility."  One  of  their  number.  Count  Mirabeau, 
ventured  to  remonstrate  against  this  arrogance,  and  to  advocate  the  rights 

*  Rapport  fait  aii  Eoi  dans  son  Conceil,  le  27  Decembre,  1788. 

t  The  edict  convening  the  States  contained  the  following  sentiments  :  "We  have  need  of  the 
concourse  of  our  faithful  subjects  to  aid  in  surmounting  the  diflBcultics  arising  from  the  state  of 
the  finances,  and  establishing,  in  conformity  with  our  most  ardent  desire,  a  durable  order  in  the 
l)arts  of  government  which  affect  the  public  welfare.  We  wish  that  the  three  estates  should 
confer  together  on  the  matters  which  will  be  exhibited  for  their  examination.  They  will  make 
known  to  us  the  wishes  and  grievances  of  the  people  in  such  a  way  that,  by  a  mutual  confidence 
and  exchange  of  kindly  offices  between  the  king  and  the  people,  the  public  evUs  should,  as 
rapidly  as  possible,  be  remedied. 

"For  this  purpose  we  enjoin  and  command  that  immediately  upon  the  receipt  of  this  letter, 
you  proceed  to  elect  deputies  of  the  three  orders,  worthy  of  confidence  from  their  virtues  and 
the  spirit  with  which  they  are  animated ;  that  the  deputies  should  be  furnished  with  powers  and 
instructions  sufficient  to  "enable  them  to  attend  to  all  the  concerns  of  the  state,  and  introduce 
such  remedies  as  shall  be  deemed  advisable  for  the  reform  of  abuses,  and  the  establishment  of  a 
fixed  and  durable  order  in  all  parts  of  the  government,  worthy  of  the  paternal  affections  of  the 
king,  and  of  the  revolutions  of  so  noble  an  assembly." — Calonne,  Etat  de  la  France,  p.  315. 

X  Michelet,  vol.  i.,  p.  75. 

§  "I  am  convinced  that  those  societies  (as  the  Indians)  who  live  without  government,  enjoy 
in  their  general  mass  an  infinitely  greater  degree  of  happiness  than  those  who  live  under  the 
European  governments.  Among  the  former  public  opinion  is  in  the  place  of  law,  and  restrains 
morals  as  powerfully  as  laws  ever  did  any  where.  Among  the  latter,  under  the  pretense  of  gov- 
erning, they  have  divided  their  nations  into  two  classes— wolves  and  sheep.  I  do  not  exagger- 
ate."—  Tlwmas  Jefferson.     Life  Inj  Henry  S.  RandaU,  vol.  i.,  p.  -IGl:. 


80  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAI'.  YJIL 

of  the  people.  He  was  a  man  of  extraordinary  genius  and  courage,  and  be- 
fore no  mortal  or  assemblage  of  mortals  could  his  eye  be  compelled  to  quail. 
He  persisted  and  stood  at  bay,  the  whole  Parliament,  in  a  tumult  of  rage, 
assailing  him.  With  amazing  powers  of  vituperative  eloquence  he  hurled 
back  their  denunciations,  and  glared  upon  them  fiercely  and  unconquerably. 
He  was  a  man  of  Uerculean  frame,  with  a  gigantic  head,  thickly  covered  with 
shaggy  locks,  and  he  would  have  been  an  exceedingly  handsome  man  had 
not  his  face  been  horribly  scarred  with  the  small-pox.  He  was  a  man  of 
iron  nerve  and  soul,  and  knew  not  what  it  was  to  fear  any  thing.  Like 
most  of  the  noblesse  and  the  higher  clergy,  he  had  lived  a  dissolute  life. 
The  parliamentary  assembly,  in  a  storm  of  wrath,  ex23elled  him  from  their 
body.     He  left  the  house,  but  in  departing,  in  portentous  menace,  exclaimed : 

"In  all  countries  and  in  all  times  the  aristocrats  have  implacably  pursued 
every  friend  of  the  people ;  and  with  tenfold  implacability  if  such  were 
himself  born  of  the  aristocracy.  It  was  thus  that  the  last  of  the  Gracchi 
perished  by  the  hands  of  the  Patricians.  But  he,  being  struck  with  the  mor- 
tal stab,  flung  dust  toward  heaven  and  called  on  the  avenging  deities ;  and 
from  this  dust  there  was  born  Marius — Marius,  not  so  illustrious  for  exter- 
minating the  Cimbri,  as  for  overturning  in  Pome  the  tyranny  of  the  no- 
bles."* 

Mirabeau  now  threw  himself  into  the  arms  of  the  Third  Estate.  That  he 
might  more  perfectly  identify  himself  with  them,  he  hired  a  shojD,  it  is  said, 
in  ^larseilles,  and  put  up  his  sign — Mirabeau^  Wooleii-drajyer.  By  such  influ- 
ences he  was  elected  deputy  by  the  Third  Estate  both  at  Aix  and  at  Mar- 
seilles. With  enthusiasm  was  he  elected — with  ringing  of  bells,  booming 
of  cannon,  and  popular  acclaim.  He  decided  to  accept  the  election  of  Aix. 
His  measureless  audacity  was  soon  called  into  requisition  to  repel  the  haught- 
iness of  the  court.f 

The  nobles  had  obtained  the  decision  that  the  people  should  not  be  allow- 
ed the  secret  ballot,  but  should  vote  with  an  audible  voice.  They  cherished 
the  hope  that  inferior  people  so  dependent  upon  the  higher  and  wealthy 
classes,  would  not  venture  openly  to  vote  in  opposition  to  the  wishes  of  their 
superiors.:}:  It  was  thought  that  the  nobles  might  thus  be  able  to  control 
the  popular  election.  To  render  this  more  certain,  the  people,  in  their  pri- 
mary assemblies,  were  only  to  choose  electors ;  and  these  electors  were  to 
choose  the  delegates.  Thus  then  was  a  double  chance  for  intimidation  and 
bribery. 

But  the  people  had  made  progress  in  intelligence  for  beyond  the  concep- 
tions of  the  nobles.  They  had  an  instinctive  perception  of  their  rights,  and, 
in  the  presence  of  their  frowning  lords,  unawed,  yet  respectfully,  they  chose 
electors  who  would  be  true  to  the  popular  causc.§    Thus  the  nobles  not  only 

*  Tils  Adoptif,  vol.  v.,  p.  2r.n.  f  Art.  Miraboau,  BioRrnphie  Modcme. 

t  '"TIk!  i)opular  nssomlilies  were  to  vote  by  acclamation  («  haute  voix).  Thoy  did  not  sujjposc 
that  inferior  i)Coi>Ic  in  such  a  mode  of  election,  in  i)rcsencc  of  the  nohlcs  and  Notables,  would 
jwssess  sufficient  firnincss  to  oppose  them— enouRJi  assurance  to  pronounce  other  names  than 
those  which  were  dictated  to  them."— J/ic/jc/ir,  vol.  i.,  j).  7G. 

()  "The  lonR-looked-for  has  come  at  last ;  wondrous  news  of  victorv,  deliverance,  enfranchise- 
ment, sounds  mafiicnl  throuRh  every  heart.  To  the  i)roud  stronp  man  it  has  come  whose  strong 
hands  shall  bo  uo  more  gyved.     The  weary  day-drudge  has  heard  of  it ;  the  beggar  with  his 


1789.]  THE  APPEAL  TO  THE  PEOPLE.  81 

failed  in  introducing  an  aristocratic  element  into  the  popular  branch,  but, 
much  to  their  chagrin,  they  found  a  very  powerful  popular  party  thrown 
into  the  order  of  the  clergy.*  The  higher  offices  in  the  ecclesiastical  hie- 
rarchy, which  gave  the  possessor  vast  revenue  and  no  labor,  were  generally 
in  the  hands  of  nobles,  haughty,  intolerant,  united  in  all  their  sympathies 
with  their  brethren  of  the  privileged  class.  But  the  curates,  the  pastors  of 
the  churches,  who  preached,  and  visited  the  rich,  and  instructed  the  chil- 
dren, working  hard  and  living  in  penury,  came  from  the  firesides  of  the  peo- 
ple. They  were  familiar  with  the  sufferings  of  their  parishioners,  and  their 
sympathies  were  warmly  with  them.  Many  of  these  curates  were  men  of 
unaffected  piety.  Nearly  every  writer  upon  the  Eevolution  is  compelled  to 
do  them  justice.f 

It  had  been  decided  that  the  States-General  should  consist  of  twelve  hund- 
red members.  The  people  were  consequently  to  choose  six  hundred,  and  the 
clergy  and  nobility  six  hundred.  But,  as  the  three  orders  held  their  elec- 
tions separately,  the  two  privileged  classes  were  entitled  to  three  hundred 
each.  Two  hundred  curates  were  chosen  as  representatives  of  the  clergy. 
And  though  these  parish  ministers  were  much  overawed  by  their  ecclesiasti- 
cal superiors,  and  would  hardly  venture  openly  to  vote  in  contradiction  to 
their  wishes,  still  both  nobles  and  bishops  understood  that  they  were  in  heart 
with  the  people.  There  was  also  a  very  small  minority  among  the  nobles 
who  were  advocates  of  the  popular  cause,  some  from  noble  impulses,  like  La 
Fayette,  and  some  from  ignoble  motives,  like  the  Duke  of  Orleans.  Thomas 
Jefferson,  who  was  at  this  time  in  Paris,  wrote  four  days  after  the  opening 
of  the  States-General  to  Mr.  Jay,  "It  was  imagined  the  ecclesiastical  elec- 
tions would  have  been  generally  in  favor  of  the  higher  clergy ;  on  the  con- 
trary, the  lower  clergy  have  obtained  five  sixths  of  these  deputations.  These 
are  the  sons  of  peasants,  who  have  done  all  the  drudgery  of  the  service  for 
ten,  twenty,  and  thirty  guineas  a  year,  and  whose  opjDressions  and  penury, 
contrasted  with  the  pride  and  luxury  of  the  higher  clergy,  have  rendered 
them  perfectly  disposed  to  humble  the  latter."    . 

These  facts,  and  the  harmony  with  which  the  inexperienced  multitude/ 
took  this  first  great  step  toward  national  regeneration,  excited  throughout 
aristocratic  Europe  amazement  and  alarm.  Kings  and  nobles  alike  trembled. 
All  the  states  of  Europe,  like  France,  were  oppressed  by  feudal  despotism. 
All  the  people  of  Europe  might,  like  the  French,  demand  reform.  The  for- 
midable aspect  which  this  popular  unity  of  thought  and  action  presented 

cnist  moistened  in  tears.  What !  to  us  also  has  hope  reached — down  even  to  us  ?  Hunger  and 
hardship  are  not  to  be  eternal  ?  The  bread  we  extorted  from  the  rugged  glebe,  and  with  the 
toil  of  our  sinews  reaped,  and  ground,  and  kneaded  into  loaves,  was  not  wholly  for  another  then, 
but  we  shall  cut  of  it  and  be  filled?" — Carlyle,  vol.  i.,  p.  118. 

*  ' '  The  prelates  and  dignified  clergy  felt  the  utmost  disquietude  at  the  number  of  cure's  and 
ecclesiastics  of  inferior  rank  who  attended  them  as  members  of  the  States-General.  It  was  evi- 
dent, from  their  conversation,  habits,  and  manners,  that  they  participated  in  the  feelings  of  the 
Tiers  Etat,  with  whom  they  lived  in  constant  communication ;  and  that  the  unjust  exclusion  of 
the  middling  ranks  from  the  dignities  and  emoluments  of  the  Church  had  excited  as  much  dis- 
satisfaction in  the  ecclesiastical  classes  as  the  invidious  privileges  of  the  noblesse  had  awakened 
in  the  laity." — Alison's  History  of  Europe^  vol.  i.,  p.  G8. 

t  Michelet,  vol.  i.,  p.  77.  Desodoiuxls,  vol.  i.,  p.  135.  Rabaud,  vol.  i.,  p.  41.  De  Tocque- 
ville.  Old  Regime,  vol.  i.,  p.  144. 

F 


82 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


[CUAP.  YIII. 

struck  such  terror  that  many  of  the  leading  nobles  of  France  combined, 
among  whom  was  Count  d'Artois,  brother  of  the  king,  afterward  Charles  X., 
and  wrote  a  menacing  letter  to  the  king,  to  induce  him  to  break  his  pledge 
and  forbid  the  meeting  of  the  States.'''" 

It  was  now,  however,  too  late  to  retract.  The  train  was  in  motion  and 
could  not  be  stopped.  The  meeting  had  been  appointed  for  .the  27th  of 
April,  but  was  postponed  until  the  4th  of  May.  Another  effort,  and  one 
still  more  desperate,  was  now  made  to  prevent  the  meeting.  By  bribery, 
secret  agents,  and  false  rumors,  a  riot  was  fomented  in  Paris.  It  was  appar- 
ently judged  that  if  fifty  thousand  men  could  be  turned  loose  into  the  streets, 
starving  and  without  work,  to  pillage  and  destroy,  it  would  authorize  the 
concentration  of  the  army  at  Paris ;  the  deluded  rioters  could  be  easily  shot 
down,  and  it  could  plausibly  be  affirmed  that  public  tranquility  required  the 
postponement  of  the  meeting  of  the  States.  The  mob  was  roused  by  secret 
instigators.  Guns  were  skillfully  placed  here  and  there,  which  they  could 
seize.      Two  cart-loads  of  paving-stones  were  placed  in  their  way.      For 


KIBST  BIOT   IN   TUB   FAtJBOCBO   6T.    ANTOINK. 

*  ^^•'^'^'^V^'"'-  '■;  ^-/^  Memoir,  prcsontd  nu  Roi  par  Monscipnonr  Compte  d'Artois  (Charles 
Contf  '  '  ^^"'■''''°'  ^^-  •^  ^"'^  J'l^"t'l"en.  ct  M.  Ic  Prince  de 


1789.]  THE  APPEAL  TO  THE  PEOPLE.  83 

twenty-four  hours  a  tumultuous  mass  of  people  were  left  to  do  as  they 
pleased,  apparently  waiting  for  the  tumult  to  gain  strength. 

But  the  effort  was  a  failure ;  it  proved  but  an  artificial  mob,  and  the  out- 
break almost  died  of  itself.  One  house,  that  of  M.  Eeveillon,  was  sacked, 
and  the  wine-bottles  from  his  cellar  distributed  through  the  streets.  At 
length  the  soldiers  were  called  in,  and  at  the  first  discharge  of  the  guns  the 
riot  was  quelled.  How  many  were  shot  down  by  the  discharge  of  grapeshot 
is  uncertain.  The  court  made  a  foolish  endeavor  to  exaggerate  the  disturb- 
ance, and  represented  that  the  people  were  ferocious  in  violence.  Others, 
on  the  popular  side,  represented  that  multitudes  were  assembled  from  curi- 
osity to  see  what  was  going  on,  that  the  streets  were  swept  with  grapeshot, 
and  that  hundreds  of  innocent  spectators  were  cut  down.  M.  Bailly,  on  the 
contrary,  says,  that  the  rioters  fled  as  soon  as  the  soldiers  appeared,  and  that 
no  one  was  injured. 

The  court  did  not  venture  to  prosecute  inquiries  respecting  the  outbreak.* 
The  cold  winds  of  winter  were  now  sweeping  over  France.  All  the  in- 
dustrial energies  of  the  nation  were  paralyzed.  The  loss  of  the  harvest  had 
created  a  general  famine,  and  famine  had  introduced  pestilence.  Men,  wom- 
en, and  children,  without  number,  wandered  over  the  highways,  and  by  a 
natural  instinct  flocked  to  Paris.  The  inhabitants  of  the  city  looked  ap- 
palled upon  these  multitudes,  with  haggard  faces  and  in  rags,  who  crowded 
their  pavements.  They  could  not  be  fed,  and  starving  men  are  not  willing 
to  lie  down  tranquilly  and  die  when  they  have  strong  arms  to  seize  that 
food  which  the  rich  can  obtain  with  money.  The  eloquent  and  impassioned 
writers  of  the  day  had  fully  unveiled  to  the  nation  the  abuses  which  it  had 
for  ages  endured,  and  yet  the  people,  with  wonderful  patience  and  long-suf- 
fering, were  quietly  waiting  for  the  meeting  of  the  States- General^  as  the  only 
means  for  the  redress  of  Iheir  grievances. 

On  the  4th  of  May,  1789,  the  States-Greneral  were  convened  at  Versailles. 
The  clergy  and  the  nobility  appeared,  by  royal  decree,  magnificently  attired 
in  purple  robes  emblazoned  with  gold,  and  with  plumed  hats.  The  depu- 
ties of  the  Third  Estate  were  enjoined  to  present  themselves  in  plain  black 
cloaks  and  slouched  hats,  as  the  badge  of  their  inferiority.f  On  Saturda}^, 
the  2d  of  May,  the  king  gave  a  reception,  in  the  magnificent  audience-cham- 
ber of  the  palace,  to  the  delegates.  When  one  of  the  nobles  or  of  the  high 
clergy  presented  himself  both  of  the  folding  doors  were  thrown  open  as  his 
name  was  announced ;  but  when  one  of  the  Third  Estate  was  presented  one 
door  only  was  thrown  back.  This  studied  indignity  was  of  course  annoying 
to  men  who  were  really  the  most  distinguished  in  the  realm,  and  who  were 
conscious  of  their  vast  superiority  to  the  corrupt  and  decaying  aristocracy.:}: 

*  It  has  been  denied  that  the  nobles  were  guilty  of  this  act.  For  proof  see  Memoires  de  Ben- 
senval,  tome  ii.,  p.  347 ;  L'OSuvre  des  Sept  Jours,  p.  411 ;  Expose'  Justificatif ;  Bailly's  Me'moires, 
tome  ii.,  p.  51.  M.  Kabaud  de  St.  Etienne  writes  :  "  If  the  agents  of  despotism  devised  this  in- 
fernal stratagem,  as  was  afterward  believed,  it  makes  one  crime  more  to  be  added  to  all  those  of 
which  despotism  had  already  become  guilty." 

t  "A  hall  had  been  hastily  got  ready;  the  costumes  were  determined  upon,  and  a  humiliat- 
ing badge  had  been  imposed  iipon  the  Tiers  Etat.  Men  are  not  less  jealous  of  their  dignity  than 
of  their  rights.  With  a  very  just  pride  the  instructions  forbade  the  deputies  to  condescend  to  any 
degrading  ceremonial." — Jlders,  vol.  i.,  p.  35.  J  M.  Rabaud  de  St.  Etienne,  vol.  i.,  p.  43. 


84 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


[Chap.  VIII. 

On  the  Paris  Avenue  at  Versailles  there  was  an  immense  haU  called  the 
Salk  des  Menus,  which  no  longer  exists.  It  was  sufficiently  large  to  contain 
the  twelve  hundred  deputies,  and  in  whose  spacious  galleries  and  wide  side- 
aisles  four  thousand  spectators  could  be  assembled.     It  was  a  magnificent 


hall,  and  was  ornamented  for  the  occasion  with  the  highest  embellishments 
of  art.  Here  the  king  could  meet  all  the  deputies  of  the  three  orders.  But 
the  nobles  and  the  clergy  had  already  formed  the  plan  still  to  keep  the 
power  m  their  own  hands  by  insisting  that  the  States  should  meet  in  three 
separate  chambers  and  give  three  separate  votes.  Thus  three  hundred  no- 
bles and  three  hundred  clergy  would  give  two  votes,  and  six  hundred  of  tlie 
people  but  one.  This  was  the  last  chance  for  the  privileged  class  to  retain 
their  domination,  and  this  battle  they  would  fight  to  desperation.  The  peo- 
ple were  cquaBy  determined  not  to  be  thus  circumvented.  The  privileged 
class,  resolved  upon  the  accomplishment  of  their  ])lan,  had  prepared  for 
themselves  two  smaller  halls,  one  for  the  nobility  and  one  for  the  clergy. 


1789.]  ASSEMBLING  OF  THE  STATES-GENERAL.  85 


CHAPTER  IX. 

ASSEMBLING  OF  THE   STATES-GENERAL. 

Opening  of  the  States-General.— Sermon  of  the  Bishop  of  Nancy. — Insult  to  the  Deputies  of  the 
People.— Aspect  of  Mirabeau. — Boldness  of  the  Third  Estate. — Journal  of  Mirabeau. — Com- 
mencement of  the  Conflict. — First  Appearance  of  Robespierre. — Decided  Stand  taken  by  the 
Commons. — Views  of  the  Curates. — Dismay  of  the  Nobles. — Excitement  in  Paris. — The  Na- 
tional Assembly. — The  Oath. 

On  the  4tli  of  May,  1789,  the  day  of  the  opening  of  the  States-General,  a 
solemn  procession  took  place.  Nearly  all  Paris  flocked  out  to  Versailles, 
which  is  but  ten  miles  from  the  metropolis,  and  countless  thousands  from 
the  surrounding  regions  crowded  the  avenues  of  the  city  of  the  court.  The 
streets  were  decorated  with  tapestry.  The  pavements,  balconies,  and  house- 
tops were  covered  with  spectators.  Joy  beamed  from  almost  every  face,*  for 
it  was  felt  that,  after  a  long  night,  a  day  of  prosperity  was  dawning.  The 
court,  the  clergy,  and  the  nobles  appeared  in  extraordinary  splendor ;  but,  as 
the  procession  moved  along,  it  was  observed  that  the  eyes  of  the  multitude, 
undazzled  by  the  pageant  of  embroidered  robes  and  nodding  plumes,  were 
riveted  upon  the  sis  hundred  deputies  of  the  people,  in  their  plain  garb — 
the  advance-guard  of  freedom's  battalions.  They  were  every  where  greeted, 
as  they  moved  along,  with  clapping  of  hands  and  acclaim  which  seemed  to 
rend  the  skies. 

"  Rapturous,  enchanting  scene !"  exclaims  Ferri^res,  "  to  which  I  faintly 
strive  to  do  justice.  Bands  of  music,  placed  at  intervals,  filled  the  air  with 
melodious  sounds.  Military  marches,  the  rolling  of  the  drums,  the  clang  of 
trumpets,  the  noble  chants  of  the  priests,  alternately  heard  without  discord- 
ance, without  confusion,  enlivened  this  triumphal  procession  to  the  temple 
of  the  Almighty." 

On  their  arrival  at  the  church,  the  three  orders  were  seated  on  benches 
placed  in  the  nave.  The  king  and  queen  occupied  thrones  beneath  a  can- 
opy of  purple  velvet  sprinkled  with  golden  fleur  de  lis.  The  princes  and 
princesses,  with  the  great  officers  of  the  crown  and  the  ladies  of  the  palace, 
occupied  conspicuous  positions  reserved  for  them  by  the  side  of  their  majes- 
ties. After  the  most  imposing  ceremonies,  and  music  by  a  majestic  choir, 
"unaccompanied  by  the  din  of  instruments,"  the  Bishop  of  Nancy  preached 
a  sermon  enforcing  the  sentiment  that  religion  constitutes  the  prosperity  of 
nations.f 

*  "  Like  the  nation,  I  was  full  of  hope,  hope  that  I  then  could  not  suppose  vain.  Alas !  how 
can  one  now  think  without  tears  on  the  hopes  and  expectations  then  every  where  felt  by  all 
good  Frenchmen,  by  every  friend  of  humanity  !" — Necker  on  the  French  Revolution. 

+  "The  Tiers  Etat  numbered  among  its  members  a  great  proportion  of  the  talent  and  almost 
all  the  energy  of  France.  The  leading  members  of  the  bar,  of  the  mercantile  and  medical  class- 
es, and  many  of  the  ablest  of  the  clergy  were  to  be  found  in  its  ranks.  "—^&on,  vol.  i.,  p.  69. 


86  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  IX. 

It  was  a  noble  discourse,  replete  with  political  wisdom  and  Christian  phi- 
losophy. The  two  can  never  be  dissevered.  In  glowing  colors  he  depicted 
the  vices  of  the  financial  system,  and  showed  the  misery  and  demoralization 
which  it  necessarily  brought  upon  the  people.  "  And  it  is,"  said  he,  "  in 
the  name  of  a  good  king,  of  a  just  and  feeling  monarch,  that  these  miserable 
exactors  exercise  their  acts  of  barbarism."  This  sentiment,  so  complimen- 
tary to  the  personal  character  of  the  king,  so  denunciatory  of  the  institutions 
of  France,  was  received  with  a  general  burst  of  applause,  notwithstanding 
the  sacredness  of  the  place,  and  the  etiquette  of  the  French  court,  which  did 
not  allow  applause  in  the  presence  of  the  king  even  at  the  theatre.*  With 
these  religious  ceremonies  the  day  was  closed. 

The  next  day.  May  5th,  the  court  and  all  the  deputies  of  the  three  orders 
were  assembled  in  the  great  hall,  to  listen  to  the  instructions  of  the  king. 
And  here,  again,  the  deputies  of  the  people  encountered  an  insult.  A  par- 
ticular door  was  assigned  to  them,  a  back  door  which  they  approached  by  a 
corridor,  were  they  were  kept  crowded  together  for  several  hours,  until  the 
king,  the  court,  the  nobles,  and  the  clergy  had  entered  in  state  at  the  great 
door,  and  had  taken  their  seats.  The  back  door  was  then  opened,  and  the 
deputies  of  the  people,  in  that  garb  which  had  been  imposed  upon  them  as 
a  badge  of  inferiority,  were  permitted  to  file  in  and  take  the  benches  at  the 
lower  end  of  the  hall  which  had  been  left  for  them.f 

As  they  entered,  the  galleries  were  filled  with  spectators.  The  king  and 
queen  were  seated  upon  a  throne  gorgeously  decorated.  The  court,  in  its 
highest  splendor,  nearly  encircled  the  throne.  The  nobility  and  the  clergy, 
with  plumes  and  robes  of  state,  occupied  elevated  seats.  All  ej^s  were  fixed 
upon  the  deputies  as  they  entered  one  by  one,  plainly  dressed,  with  slouched 
hat  in  hand.  Mirabeau,  in  particular,  attracted  universal  observation.  He 
was  not  only  by  birth  and  blood  an  aristocrat,  but  he  was  an  aristocrat  in 
taste  and  manners.  The  spirit  of  revenge  had  driven  him  into  the  ranks  of 
the  people.  As  he  strode  along  the  aisle  to  his  seat,  he  turned  a  threatening 
glance  to  the  plumed  and  embroidered  noblesse,  from  whose  seats  he  had 
been  driven,  and  a  smile,  haughty  and  bitterly  menacing,  curled  his  lips.:j: 

The  king's  speech  was  favorably  received.  Ue  appeared  before  the  rep- 
resentatives with  dignity,  and  recited  very  appropriately  the  cordial  and  con- 
ciliatory words  which  Necker  had  placed  in  his  mouth.  On  finishing  his 
speech,  he  sat  down  and  put  on  his  plumed  hat.  The  clergy  and  the  nobles, 
in  accordance  with  custom,  did  the  same.  But  to  their  astonishment,  the 
Third  Estate  also,  as  by  an  instinctive  simultaneous  movement,  placed  their 
slouched  hats  upon  their  heads.  The  nobles,  amazed  at  what  they  deemed 
such  insolence  of  the  people,  shouted  imperiously,  "Hats  ofi",  hats  off!"  But 
the  hats  remained,  as  if  glued  to  the  head.  The  king,  to  appease  the  tu- 
mult, again  uncovered  his  head.  This  necessitated  the  nobles  and  the  clergy 
to  do  the  same.  Immediately  the  Third  Estate  followed  their  example,  and, 
for  the  remainder  of  the  session,  all  sat  with  uncovered  heads.§  When  the 
last  States-General  met,  the  Third  Estate  were  compelled  to  throw  themselves 

*  Frnnrc  nnd  its  Revolutions,  bj-  Geo.  Long,  Esq.,  p.  2. 

t  M.  liulmu.l  de  St.  Etinme,  vol.  i.,  ,,.  47.  "    "  j  M.ulnm"  dc  Stncl. 

<)  Histoirc  rarlemcutiiiie,  vol.  i.,  p.  3oG. 


1789.]  ASSEMBLING  OF  THE  STATES-GENERAL.  87 

upon  tlieir  knees  in  the  presence  of  the  king,  and  to  address  him  only  upon 
their  knees.* 

When  Necker  arose  to  speak,  all  eyes  were  riveted  and  all  ears  were  on 
the  alert.  As  the  organ  of  the  king  and  his  council,  the  minister  was  to 
communicate  the  real  opinions  and  intentions  of  the  court.  The  clergy  and 
the  nobility  were  agreeably  disappointed;  but  the  people,  on  their  back 
benches,  listened  silent  and  sorrowful.  They  heard  none  of  those  noble 
ideas  of  equality  and  liberty  which  they  were  ready  to  receive  with  enthusi- 
astic acclaim.  Necker  was  evidently  trammeled  by  the  king,  the  court,  and 
the  nobles,  now  uniting  in  the  feeling  that  the  rising  power  of  the  Third  Es- 
tate must  be  repressed.     Thus  ended  the  second  day. 

Mirabeau  had  commenced  a  journal,  to  contain,  for  popular  information,  a 
record  of  the  proceedings  of  the  States-General.  The  court  jiromptly  issued 
a  decree  prohibiting  the  publication  of  this  journal,  and  also  prohibiting  the 
issuing  of  any  periodical  without  permission  of  the  king.  A  rigid  censor- 
ship of  the  press  was  thus  re-established,  and  the  deputies  were  excluded 
from  all  effectual  communication  with  their  constituents.  This  was  another 
measure  of  folly  and  madness.  It  led  individual  members  to  issue  written 
journals,  which  were  read  in  the  saloons,  the  clubs,  and  at  the  corners  of  the 
streets  to  excited  multitudes,  and  it  induced  thousands  to  crowd  the  spacious 
galleries  of  the  hall  to  listen  to  the  debates.  Thus  the  speakers  were  ani- 
mated by  the  presence  of  four  thousand  of  the  most  earnest  of  the  people, 
eager  to  applaud  every  utterance  in  behalf  of  popular  liberty.  The  public 
mind  was  also  increasingly  irritated  by  the  petty  persecution ;  so  much  so, 
that  at  length  the  king  thought  it  not  safe  to  enforce  the  decree,  and  the  de- 
fiant Mirabeau  soon  resumed  the  publication  of  his  journal,  under  the  title 
o^  Letters  to  my  Constituents. \ 

The  next  day  the  deputies  of  the  Third  Estate  at  the  appointed  hour  re- 
paired to  the  hall ;  but  they  found  there  none  either  of  the  clergy  or  of  the 
nobles.  These  two  parties,  resolved  to  perpetuate  the  division  of  orders,  had 
met  in  their  respective  halls  and  had  organized  as  distinct  bodies.  The 
Third  Estate,  assuming  the  name  of  the  Commons,  abstained  from  any  organic 
measures  and  waited  to  be  joined  by  their  colleagues.  Thus  matters  con- 
tinued for  several  days.  Every  effort  was  made  on  the  part  of  the  clergy 
and  nobles  to  ensnare  the  Commons  into  some  measure  which  would  imply 
their  organization  as  the  Third  Estate,  but  all  was  in  vain.  Assuming  that 
they  were  a  meeting  of  citizens  assembled  by  legitimate  authority  to  wait 
for  other  citizens  that  they  might  organize  a  political  assembly,  they  merely 
chose  a  temporary  chairman  for  the  preservation  of  order,  and  icaited.X 

*  "Who  would  believe  that  this  mad  court  remembered  and  regretted  the  absurd  custom  of 
making  the  Third  Estate  harangue  on  their  knees  ?  They  were  unwilling  to  difepense  from  this 
ceremony  expressly,  and  preferred  deciding  that  the  President  of  the  Third  Estate  should  make 
no  speech  whatever." — j\richclet,  vol.  i.,  p.  88. 

f  Proces  verbal  des  electeurs  redigepar  Bailly  et  Duveyrier,  t.  i.,  p.  34. 

J  "The  chairman  was  M.  Bailly,  a  simple  and  virtuous  man,  an  illustrious  and  modest  cul- 
tivator of  the  sciences,  who  had  been  suddenly  transported  from  the  quiet  studies  of  his  closet 
into  the  midst  of  civil  broils.  Elected  to  preside  over  a  great  assembly,  he  had  been  alarmed  at 
his  new  office,  had  deemed  himself  unworthy  to  fill  it,  and  had  undertaken  it  solely  from  a  sense 
of  duty.  But,  raised  all  at  once  to  liberty,  he  found  within  him  an  unexpected  presence  of  mind 
and  firmness.  Amid  so  many  conflicts,  he  caused  the  majesty  of  the  assembly  to  be  respected, 
and  represented  it  with  all  the  dignity  of  virtue  and  reason." — Thiers,  vol.  i.,  p.  42. 


88  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  IX. 

Here,  then,  the  vital  question  was  to  be  decided  whether  the  States-Gene- 
ral should  compose  one  body  where  the  majority  should  rule,  or  three  sepa- 
rate bodies  where  two  could  unite,  a  perpetual  majority,  against  one.  Upon 
this  question  the  whole  issue  of  reform  was  suspended.  All  equally  under- 
derstood  the  bearings  of  the  question,  and  all  equally  saw  that  there  was  no 
room  for  compromise.  It  was  a  death-struggle.  If  united  in  one  assembly 
the  people  would  have  a  majority,  and  could  maintain  popular  rights.  If 
there  were  three  bodies  the  people  would  be  in  a  hopeless  minority,  having 
two  against  them.  The  attention  of  all  France  was  engrossed  by  the  con- 
flict, and  the  nation,  with  all  its  interests  paralyzed,  began  to  grow  impatient 
of  the  delay.  "  The  nobles,"  M.  Bailly  writes,  "  decreed  that  the  deliberation 
by  order,  and  the  power  of  each  order  to  put  a  veto  on  the  proceedings  of 
the  other  two,  were  part  of  the  very  constitution  of  the  monarchy,  and  that 
they  must  maintain  them  as  the  defenders  of  the  throne  and  freedom. 
What  a  strange  decree !  The  representatives  of  about  two  hundred  thousand 
individuals,  or  more,  who  are  nobles  take  upon  themselves  to  decide,  and  in 
their  own  favor,  a  question  that  concerns  twenty-five  millions  of  men.  They 
assume  for  themselves  the  right  of  the  veto ;  they  declare  the  powers  and 
the  principles  of  the  constitution ;  and  who  are  they  more  than  others  who 
thus  declare  ?"* 

During  this  protracted  conflict  the  higher  clergy  cunningly  devised  the 
following  plan  to  place  the  Commons  in  a  false  position :  They  sent  an  im- 
posing delegation,  headed  by  the  Archbishop  of  Aix,  with  a  pathetic  allu- 
sion to  the  miseries  of  the  people,  and  entreated  the  Commons  to  enter 
into  a  conference  to  assuage  their  sufferings.  The  snare  was  shrewdly  con- 
trived. If  the  Commons  assented,  it  was  the  commencement  of  business  with 
three  chambers ;  if  they  refused,  the  clergy  would  apparently  be  those  alone 
who  regarded  the  starving  population.  For  a  moment  there  was  much  em- 
barrassment. 

A  young  man  rose  in  the  Assembly,  who  was  unknown  to  nearly  all  the 
members,  and  in  a  calm,  distinct,  deliberate  voice,  which  arrested  universal 
attention,  said: 

"  Go,  tell  your  colleagues  that  we  are  waiting  for  them  here  to  aid  us  in 
assuaging  the  sorrows  of  the  people ;  tell  them  no  longer  to  retard  our  work ; 
tell  them  that  our  resolution  is  not  to  be  shaken  by  such  a  stratagem  as  this. 
If  they  have  sympathy  for  the  poor,  let  them,  as  imitators  of  their  ^Master, 
renounce  that  luxury  which  consumes  the  funds  of  indigence,  dismiss  those 
insolent  lackeys  who  attend  them,  sell  their  gorgeous  equipages,  and  with 
these  superfluities  relieve  the  perishing.     Wc  wait  for  them  here."t 

*  IndiRnantly  Dcsodoards  exclaims,  "The  descendants  of  the  Sicumbrians,  or  of  I  know  not 
what  savuRcs,  who  apes  ago  came  prowling  from  the  forests  of  Germany,  could  they  assume  at  the 
end  of  eighteen  centuries  that  their  blood  was  more  pure  than  that  wliich  flowed  in'the  veins  of  the 
descendants  of  the  Gauls,  or  the  Romans,  the  ancient  inhabitants  of  France  ?  Do  they  pretend 
that  they  are  nobles  because  they  arc  conquerors  ?  Tlien  wc,  being  now  more  powerful,  luive  only 
to  drive  them  across  the  Rhine,  and  in  our  turn  we  shall  bo  conquerors  and  conscquentlv  nobles." 
—Ihstmrc  Philusnphique  de  la  Revolution  de  France,  par  Ant.  l'\mtin  Desodoards,  Citoyen  Francais. 

t  "What  a  spectacle  fur  France  !  Six  hundred  inorpanic  individuals,  essential  for  its  rcRcne- 
ration  and  salvation,  sit  there  on  their  elliptic  benches  lonping  j.assionatcly  toward  life,  in  painful 
durance,  like  souls  waiting  to  l)c  born.  Speeches  arc  spoken,  eloquent,  audible  within  doors  and 
without.  Mind  aRitatos  itself  apainst  mind ;  the  nation  looks  on  with  ever  deeper  interest.  Thus 
do  the  Commons  dc]>uti('8  sit  inrubatiiig." — Carli/lr,  vol.  i.,  j).  M8. 


1789.]  ASSEMBLING  OF  THE  STATES-GENERAL.  89 

The  snare  was  adroitly  avoided.  There  was  a  imiversal  hum  of  appro- 
val, and  all  were  inquiring  the  name  of  the  young  deputy.  This  was  the 
first  public  appearance  of  Maximilian  Eobespierre.* 

At  last,  on  the  27th  of  May,  twenty-two  days  after  the  convening  of  the 
States,  the  Commons  sent  a  deputation  to  the  halls  of  the  clergy  and  of  the 
nobility,  urging  them,  in  the  name  of  the  God  of  peace,  to  meet  in  the  hall 
of  the  Assembly  to  deliberate  upon  the  public  welfare.  This  led  to  a  series 
of  conferences  and  of  suggested  compromises  from  the  king  and  the  court 
which  continued  for  a  fortnight,  and  all  of  which  proved  unavailing.  At 
last,  on  the  10th  of  June,  Mirabeau  arose,  and  said, 

"A  month  is  passed.f  It  is  time  to  take  a  decisive  step,  A  deputy  of 
Paris  has  an  important  motion  to  make.     Let  us  hear  him." 

The  Abbe  Si^yes:}:  then  rose  and  proposed  to  send  a  last  invitation  to  the 
other  orders  to  join  them ;  and,  if  they  refused,  to  proceed  to  business,  not  as 
a  branch  of  the  convention,  but  as  the  whole  body.  The  proposition  was 
received  with  enthusiasm.  This  was  on  Wednesday.  As  the  next  day, 
Thursday,  was  appropriated  to  religious  solemnities,  Friday,  the  12th,  was 
fixed  upon  as  the  day  in  which  this  important  summons  was  to  be  sent.§ 

This  last  appeal  was  sent  in  the  following  words,  which  the  committee 
from  the  Commons  were  charged  to  read  to  the  clergy  and  the  nobles,  and 
a  copy  of  which  they  were  to  leave  with  them  : 

"  Gentlemen,  we  are  commissioned  by  the  deputies  of  the  Commons  of 
France  to  apprise  you  that  they  can  no  longer  delay  the  fulfillment  of  the 
obhgation  imposed  on  all  the  representatives  of  the  nation.  It  is  assuredly 
time  that  those  who  claim  this  quality  should  make  themselves  known  by 
a  common  verification  of  their  powers,  and  begin  at  length  to  attend  to  the 
national  interest,  which  alone,  and  to  the  exclusion  of  all  private  interests, 
presents  itself  as  the  grand  aim  to  which  all  the  deputies  ought  to  tend  by 
one  general  effort.  In  consequence,  and  from  the  necessity  which  the  rep- 
resentatives of  the  nation  are  under  to  proceed  to  business,  the  deputies  of 
the  Commons  entreat  you  anew,  gentlemen,  and  their  duty  enjoins  them  to 
address  to  you,  as  well  individually  as  collectively,  a  last  summons  to  come 

*  Bailly's  Memoires,  t.  i.,  p.  114. — Dumont,  Souvenirs,  etc.,  vol.  i.,  p.  59. 

t  "A  month  lost!  One  month  in  open  famine.  Observe  that  in  this  long  expectation  the 
rich  kept  themselves  motionless,  and  postponed  every  kind  of  expenditure.  Work  had  ceased. 
He  who  had  but  his  liands,  his  daily  labor  to  supply  the  day,  went  to  look  for  work,  found  none — 
begged — got  nothing — robbed.     Starving  gangs  overran  the  country." — Michelet,  vol.  i.,  p.  93. 

X  The  Abbe  Sieyes  was  one  of  the  deputies  sent  by  the  Third  Estate  from  Paris,  and  the  only 
clergyman  in  their  delegation. 

§  Sieyes'  motion  was  to  summon  the  privileged.  By  vote  of  the  Assembly  the  word  was  changed 
to  invite. — France  and  its  Revolutions,  by  G.  Long,  Esq.,  p.  12. 

"The  Assembly,"  writes  M.  Bailly,  its  president,  "deliberating  after  the  verification  of  its 
powers,  perceives  that  it  is  already  composed  of  representatives  sent  directly  by  ninety-six  hund- 
redths, at  least,  of  the  whole  nation.  Nothing  can  be  more  exact  than  this  assertion.  The  four 
hundredths  that  are  absent,  but  duly  summoned,  can  not  impede  the  ninety-six  hundredths  that 
are  present. 

"The  Assembly  will  never  lose  the  hope  of  uniting  in  its  bosom  all  the  deputies  that  are  now 
absent ;  will  never  cease  to  call  upon  them  to  fulfill  the  obligation  that  has  been  imposed  upon 
them  of  concurring  with  the  sitting  of  the  States-General.  At  w"hatever  moment  the  absent  depu- 
ties may  present  themselves  in  the  session  about  to  open,  the  Assembly  declares  beforehand  that 
it  will  hasten  to  receive  them,  to  share  with  them,  after  the  verification  of  their  powers,  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  great  labors  which  can  not  but  procure  the  regeneration  of  France." 


90  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  IX. 

to  the  ball  of  the  States,  to  attend,  concur  in,  and  submit  like  themselves  to 
the  common  verification  of  powers.  We  are,  at  the  same  time,  directed  to 
inform  you  that  the  general  call  of  all  the  bailliages  convoked  will  take  place 
in  an  hour ;  that  the  Assembly  will  immediately  proceed  to  the  verification, 
and  that  such  as  do  not  appear  will  be  declared  defaulters." 

This  summons,  so  bold  and  decisive,  excited  not  a  little  consternation  in 
both  of  the  privileged  bodies.  The  curates  among  the  clergy  received  the 
message  with  applause,  and  were  in  favor  of  immediate  compliance.  But 
their  ecclesiasticid  superiors  held  them  in  check,  and  succeeded  in  obtaining 
an  adjournment. 

The  Commons  waited  the  hour,  and  then  proceeded  to  the  examination 
of  the  credentials  of  the  deputies.  This  occupied  three  days.  On  the  first 
day  three  of  the  curates  came  from  the  clergy  and  united  with  them.  They 
were  received  with  enthusiasm.  On  the  second  day  six  came,  on  the  third 
ten,  and  then  it  was  announced  that  one  hundred  and  forty  were  coming  in 
a  body.  This  excited  thorough  alarm  with  all  the  high  dignitaries  of  Church 
and  State.  "The  aristocracy,"  says  Thiers,  "immediately  threw  itself  at 
the  feet  of  the  king.  The  Duke  of  Luxembourg,  the  Cardinal  de  la  Roche- 
foucault,  the  Archbishop  of  Paris,  implored  him  to  repress  the  audacity  of  the 
Tiers  Elat  and  to  support  their  rights  which  were  attacked.  The  Parliament 
proposed  to  him  to  do  without  the  States,  j)romisimj  to  assent  to  all  the  taxes. 
The  king  was  surrounded  by  the  princes  and  the  queen.  This  was  more 
than  was  requisite  for  his  weakness.  They  hurried  him  off  to  Marly  in  or- 
der to  extort  from  him  a  vigorous  measure." 

This  state  of  things  had  secured  perfect  reconciliation  between  the  court 
and  the  aristocracy.  The  lines  were  now  distinctly  drawn;  the  king,  no- 
bles, and  clergy  on  one  side,  the  people  on  the  other.  The  excitement  in 
Paris  during  this  protracted  conflict  was  very  great.  A  large  wooden  tent 
was  erected  in  the  garden  of  the  Palais  Royal,  where  a  crowd  was  almost 
constantly  gathered  to  receive  the  news  brought  by  couriers  from  Versailles. 
At  every  street  corner,  in  every  cafe,  the  subject  was  discussed.  Almost 
every  hour  produced  a  pamphlet.  "  There  were  thirteen  issued  to-day," 
writes  Arthur  Young,  "  sixteen  yesterday,  ninety -two  last  week."  In  the 
mean  time  the  court  was  concentrating  the  troops  from  all  parts  of  the  king- 
dom around  Paris  and  Versailles,  and  a  himdred  pieces  of  field  artillery 
menaced  the  two  cities. 

It  was  now  necessary  to  give  the  Assembly  a  name,  a  name  which  should 
define  its  functions.  The  assumption  that  they  were  the  nation  would  be 
bold  and  defiant.  The  admission  that  they  were  but  a  branch  of  the  national 
representation  would  be  paralyzing.  The  Assembly  was  impelled  to  jirompt 
and  decisive  action  by  the  apprehension,  universally  entertained,  that  the 
court  might  employ  the  army,  now  assembled  in  such  force,  to  arrest  the 
principal  deputies,  dissolve  the  States,  and,  if  the  people  of  Paris  manifested 
any  opposition,  to  surround  the  city  and  starve  them  into  subjection.  Sic\ves, 
in  a  celebrated  ])amphlet  which  he  had  issued  to  prepare  the  public  mind 
for  this  movement,  had  said,  "The  Third  Estate  alone,  they  aflirm,  can  not. 
form  the  States-General.  "Well!  so  much  the  better;  it  shall  compose  a 
National  Assembly."     A  body  which,  by  universal  admission  reprcsouted 


1789.]  ASSEMBLING  OF  THE  STATES-GENERAL.  91 

ninetj-six  liundredths  of  tlie  nation,  might  witli  propriety  take  the  name  of 
NationaL* 

Upon  the  morning  of  the  17th  of  June,  after  a  long  and  animated  discus- 
sion of  the  preceding  day,  the  Commons  met  to  decide  this  all-important 
question.  The  king,  the  court,  and  the  aristocracy  were  greatly  alarmed. 
If  this  bold,  resolute  body  were  the  nation^  what  were  they  ?  Nothing.  The 
people  were  intensely  excited  and  animated.  Thousands  in  every  conceiv- 
able vehicle  flocked  out  from  Paris  to  Versailles.  The  galleries  of  the  vast 
hall,  rising  like  an  amphitheatre,  were  crowded  to  their  utmost  capacity. 
The  building  was  surrounded  and  the  broad  avenues  of  Versailles  thronged 
with  the  excited  yet  orderly  multitude. 

The  members  had  but  just  assembled  when  the  president,  Bailly,  was 
summoned  to  the  chancellor's  office  to  receive  a  message  from  the  king.  It 
was  well  understood  that  this  message  would  be  a  regal  prohibition  for  them 
to  do  any  thing  without  the  concurrence  of  the  three  orders.  The  Assembly 
immediately,  with  firmness,  postponed  the  reception  of  the  message  until  the 
vote  then  before  them  was  taken.  Again  they  were  interrupted  by  a  com- 
munication from  the  nobles,  who  in  their  alarm  made  a  desperate  endeavor 
to  thwart  the  proceedings.  But  the  Assembly  calmly  and  firmly  proceeded, 
and  by  a  vote  of  four  hundred  and  one  against  ninety  declared  themselves 
the  National  Assembly, 

In  the  presence  of  four  thousand  spectators  the  deputies  then  arose,  and 
with  uplifted  hands  took  the  oath  of  fidelity.  As  with  simultaneous  voice 
they  pronounced  the  words  "TFe  swear, ^^  a  burst  of  acclamation  rose  from 
the  galleries,  which  was  caught  by  those  outside  the  door  and  rolled  along 
the  streets  like  reverberating  thunder.  "  Vive  le  Eoi !  Vive  I'Assemblee 
Nationale  !"  was  the  cry  which  came  from  gushing  hearts,  and  thousands  in 
intensity  of  emotion  bowed  their  heads  and  wept. 

A  more  heroic  deed  than  this  history  has  not  recorded.  It  was  a  decisive 
movement.  It  gave  the  people  an  organization  and  arrayed  them  face  to 
face  against  royalty  and  aristocracy.  The  king,  the  court,  the  nobles,  and 
the  higher  clergy  were  all  against  them.  They  were  surrounded  with  armies. 
They  were  unarmed  and  helpless,  save  in  the  righteousness  of  their  cause. 
They  were  menaced  with  all  the  terrors  of  exile,  the  dungeon,  and  the  scaf- 
fold ;  but,  regardless  of  all  these  perils,  faithful  to  the  sacred  cause  of  popu- 
lar liberty,  they  pledged  in  its  support  their  lives,  their  fortunes,  and  their 
sacred  honor.  Even  Alison,  the  unrelenting  foe  of  popular  rights,  the  un- 
tiring advocate  of  aristocratic  assumption,  is  constrained  to  say, 

"  It  is  impossible  to  refuse  a  tribute  of  admiration  to  those  intrepid  men, 
who,  transported  by  a  zeal  for  liberty  and  the  love  of  their  country,  ven- 
tured to  take  a  step  fraught  with  so  many  dangers,  and  which,  to  all  appear- 
ance, might  have  brought  many  to  prison  or  the  scaffold.  Few  situations 
can  be  imagined  more  dignified  than  that  of  Bailly,  crowning  a  life  of  scien- 
tific labor  with  patriotic  exertion,  surrounded  by  an  admiring  assembly,  the 
idol  of  the  people,  the  admiration  of  Europe." 

*  Necker  estimated  the  Third  Estate  at  ninety -e'r/Jn  hundredths  of  the  po2nilation. 


92  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ClIAP.  X. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY. 
« 
First  Acts  of  the  Assembly. — Confusion  of  the  Court. — Hall  of  the  Assembly  closed. — Adjourn- 
ment to  the  Tennis-court. — Cabinet  Councils. — Despotic  Measures. — The  Tennis-court  closed. 
— Exultation  of  the  Court. — Union  with  the  Clergy.— Peril  of  the  Assembly. — The  Royal  Sit- 
ting.— Speech  of  the  King. 

The  first  measure  adopted  by  tlic  National  Assembly  was  worthy  of  itself. 
It  was  voted  that  the  taxes  already  decreed,  though  not  legally  assessed  by 
the  consent  of  the  nation,  should  be  punctiliously  paid.  Instead  of  repudi- 
ating the  enormous  public  debt,  they  appropriated  it  as  their  own  and  placed 
it  under  the  safeguard  of  the  nation.  They  then  appointed  a  committee  im- 
mediately to  attend  to  the  distresses  of  the  people,  and  to  devise  measures 
for  their  relief.  IIow  vast  the  contrast  between  this  magnanimity  of  the 
people  and  the  selfishness  and  corruption  of  the  court,  as  developed  through 
ages  !  Thus  terminated  the  eventful  17th  of  June,  1789,  which  may  almost 
be  considered  the  birthday  of  the  nation  of  France.  Before  this  event  the 
people  had  hardly  a  recognized  existence.  Though  the  cradle  of  its  infancy 
has  been  rocked  with  storms,  and  though  in  its  advancing  manhood  it  has 
encountered  fearful  perils  and  the  sternest  conflicts,  yet  its  progress  is  surely 
onward  to  dignity  and  repose. 

At  an  early  hour  the  Assembly  adjourned.  Couriers  from  the  hall  has- 
tened to  expectant  Paris  with  the  glad  tidings.  The  most  fervid  imagina- 
tion can  not  conceive  the  joyful  enthusiasm  which  the  intelligence  excited 
in  the  metropolis  and  throughout  France.  The  king  and  his  court  were  at 
this  time  a  few  miles  from  Versailles,  in  the  Palace  of  Marly.  The  clergy 
and  the  nobles,  in  consternation,  sent  a  committee  of  their  most  prominent 
members  to  implore  the  interposition  of  the  royal  power.*  But  the  king 
had  not  sufiicient  nerve  for  so  decisive  an  act.  It  was  urged  that  the  nobil- 
ity and  the  clergy  should  immediately  combine  in  forming  a  united  body 
which  should  constitute  an  upper  house ;  and  thus  naturally  the  kingdom 
would  have  fallen  into  a  monarchy  like  that  of  England,  with  its  House  of 
Lords  and  its  House  of  Commons.  This  would  have  been  a  most  salutary 
reform,  and  would  have  prepared  the  way  for  the  gradual  and  safe  advance 
of  the  nation  from  servitude  to  freedom.  But,  with  madness  almost  incon- 
ceivable, the  high  nobility  with  contempt  repelled  all  idea  of  union.f  They 
deemed  it  a  degradation  to  form  a  permanent  association  with  the  lower 
clergy  and  with  men  who  had  been  within  a  few  centuries  ennobled  by  a 
decree  of  the  king.  Thus  the  formation  of  two  separate  chambers  wai?  ren- 
dered impossible  by  the  folly  of  those  very  men  whose  existence  depended 

•  Michclet,  vol.  i.,  p.  10.''.. 

t  "The  party  which  professed  to  be  the  defender  of  the  throne  spoke  with  infinite  disdain  of 
the  authority  of  the  Kinj;  of  En>,'land.  To  reduce  a  King  of  France  to  the  miserable  condition 
of  the  British  monarch  was,  in  the  l>are  conception,  heinous  and  treasonable."— CwwWfr«<ions  on 
the  French  liivolntion,  ly  Maiinnn  ilc  .StaHl, 


1789.]  THE  NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY.  93 

upon  it.  Thus  all  was  confusion  and  dismay  with  the  nobles  and  the  cler- 
gy, while  unanimity  and  vigor  pervaded  ever^  movement  of  the  Assembly.* 

In  this  state  of  affairs  a  large  proportion  of  the  clergy,  composing  nearly 
all  the  parish  ministers,  were  in  favor  of  uniting  with  the  Assembly.  The 
Duke  of  Orleans  also,  among  the  nobility,  led  a  small  minority  of  the  nobles 
in  advocacy  of  the  same  measure.  But  the  court  generally  entreated  the 
king  immediately  to  dissolve  the  Assembly,  by  violence  if  needful.  The 
popular  excitement  in  Paris  and  in  Versailles  became  intense.  The  only 
hope  of  the  people  was  in  the  Assembly.  Its  dissolution  left  them  hopeless 
and  in  desj^air.  The  king  was  vacillating,  intensely  anxious  to  crush  the 
popular  movement,  now  become  so  formidable,  but  still  fearing  to  adopt 
those  energetic  measures  by  which  alone  it  could  be  accomplished.  He  at 
length  decided,  in  accordance  with  that  system  of  folly  with  which  the  court 
seems  to  have  been  inspired,  to  resort  to  the  very  worst  measure  which 
could  have  been  adopted.  On  Friday  the  17th  of  June  the  majority  of  the 
clergy,  consisting  of  a  few  prelates  and  about  one  hundred  and  forty  curates, 
resolved  to  withdraw  from  the  dignitaries  of  the  Church  and  unite  with  the 
people,  in  the  Assembly,  the  next  day.  The  prospect  of  such  an  accession 
to  the  popular  branch  struck  consternation  into  the  ranks  of  the  privileged 
classes.  A  delegation  of  bishops  and  nobles  in  the  night  hastened  to  the 
king  at  Marly,  and  persuaded  him  to  interfere  to  prevent  the  junction. 

Yielding  to  their  importunities  he  consented  to  shut  up  the  hall  of  Assem- 
bly the  next  day,  and  to  guard  the  entrance  with  soldiers,  so  that  there 
might  be  no  meeting.  As  an  excuse  for  this  act  of  violence  it  was  to  be  al- 
leged that  the  hall  was  needed  for  workmen  to  put  up  decorations,  in  prepa- 
ration for  a  royal  sitting  which  was  to  be  held  on  Monday.  The  king  thus 
gained  time  to  decide  upon  the  measures  which  he  would  announce  at  the 
royal  sitting.f 

At  six  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  Saturday,  placards  were  posted  through 
the  streets  of  Versailles  announcing  this  decree.  At  seven  o'clock,  M.  Bail- 
ly,  president  of  the  Assembly,  received  a  note  from  one  of  the  officers  of  the 
king's  household,  informing  him  of  the  decision.  The  Assembly  had  ad- 
journed the  evening  before  to  meet  at  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning.  It  was, 
of  course,  proper  that  such  a  communication  should  have  been  made,  not  to 
the  president  at  his  lodgings,  but  to  the  assembled  body.     It  was  a  stormy 

*  Madame  de  Stael,  vol.  i.,  p.  106. 

t  Michelet,  vol.  i.,  p.  106. 

The  Marquis  of  Ferrieres,  a  deputy  of  the  nobles  and  an  earnest  advocate  of  aristocratic  as- 
sumption, wi-ites  in  his  Memoires:  "The  court,  unable  any  longer  to  hide  from  themselves  the 
real  truth  that  all  their  petty  expedients  to  separate  the  orders  served  only  to  bring  on  their 
union,  resolved  to  dissolve  the  States-General.  It  -svas  necessarj-  to  remove  the  king  from  Ver- 
sailles, to  get  Necker  and  the  ministers  attached  to  him  out  of  the  way.  A  journey  to  Marly 
was  arranged.  The  pretext  was  the  death  of  the  dauphin.  The  mind  of  the  king  was  success- 
fully worked  upon.  He  was  told  it  was  high  time  to  stop  the  unheard-of  enterprises  of  the  Third 
Estate  ;  that  he  would  soon  have  only  the  name  of  a  king.  The  Cardinal  Rochefoucault  and  the 
Archbishop  of  Paris  threw  themselves  at  the  feet  of  the  king  and  supplicated  him  to  save  the 
clergy  and  protect  religion.  The  Parliament  sent  a  secret  deputation  proposing  a  scheme  for 
getting  rid  of  the  States-General.  The  keeper  of  the  seals,  the  Count  d'Artois,  the  queen,  all 
united.  All  was  therefore  settled,  and  an  order  from  the  king  announced  a  royal  sitting  and 
suspended  the  States  under  the  pretense  of  making  arrangements  in  the  hall." 


94  THE  FKEXCII  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  X. 

morning ;  sheets  of  rain,  driven  by  a  fierce  wind,  flooded  the  streets.  At  the 
appointed  hour  the  i)resident,  accompanied  by  several  deputies,  approached 
the  hall.  They  found  the  door  guarded  by  a  detachment  of  the  royal  troops, 
and  a  lar<Te  number  of  the  representatives  assembled  before  it.  Admission 
was  positively  refused,  and  it  wiis  declared  that  any  attempt  to  force  an  en- 
trance would  be  repelled  by  the  bayonet  * 


I 


E  DOOB8   OP  THB   ASSEMBLY  CLOSED  AND  GCABDEU. 


The  Assembly  and  the  people  were  greatly  alarmed :  measures  of  violence 
were  already  commenced.  Their  immediate  dissolution  was  menaced,  and 
thus  were  to  perish  all  hopes  of  reform.  The  rain  still  fell  in  torrents. 
There  was  no  hall  in  Versailles  to  which  they  could  resort.  Some  proposed 
immediately  adjourning  to  Paris,  where  they  could  throw  themselves  upon 
the  protection  of  the  masses.  This  measure,  however,  was  rejected  as  too 
revolutionary  in  its  aspect.  One  suggested  that  there  was  in  the  city  an  old 
dilapidated  tennis-court,  and  it  was  immediately  resolved  to  assemble  upon 
its  pavements.  The  six  hundred  deputies,  now  roused  to  the  highest  pitch 
of  excitement  and  followed  by  a  vast  concourse  of  sympathizing  and  ap- 
plauding people,  passed  through  the  streets  to  the  unfurnished  tennis-court. 
Here,  with  not  even  a  seat  for  the  president,  the  Assembly  was  organized, 
and  Bailly,  in  a  firm  voice,  administered  the  following  oath,  which  was  in- 
stantly repeated  in  tones  so  full  and  strong,  by  every  lip,  as  to  reach  the  vast 
concourse  which  surrounded  the  building: 

"  We  solemnly  swear  never  to  separate,  and  to  assemble  wherever  circum- 

*  "The  deputies  stnml  proupcd  on  the  Paris  ro.id,  on  tliis  umbrapeous  Avenue  de  Versnilks, 
coniiiliiiiiin;;  aloud  of  the  indignity  done  them.  Courtiers,  it  is  sujjposcd,  look  from  their  win- 
dows anil  jii^Kle." — C(tr/i//e,  vol.  i.,  p.  If.f,. 

"Is  it  deeent,"  writes  M.  Bailly  in  his  Memoirs,  "that  the  members  of  the  National  Assem- 
bly, or  even  the  deputies  <.f  ihe  Commons,  as  you  may  still  ]>lease  to  eonsider  them,  should  thus 
be  apprised  of  the  intentions  of  the  kinjr,  of  the  susix-nsion  of  their  own  sittiiips,  only  by  the  pub- 
lic eriers  and  by  notices  posted  on  the  wall,  as  the  inhabitants  of  a  town  would  be  made  aeipiaint- 
cd  with  the  shutting  up  of  a  theatre?" 


]^789.]  THE  NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY.  95 

stances  shall  require,  until  the  constitution  of  the  kingdom  is  established, 
and  founded  on  a  solemn  basis." 

Every  deputy  then  signed  this  declaration  excepting  one  man ;  and  this 
Assembly  so  nobly  respected  private  liberty  as  to  allow  him  to  enter  his 
protest  upon  the  declaration. 

It  was  now  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  and  the  Assembly,  having  im- 
mortalized the  place  as  the  cradle  of  liberty,  adjourned. 

The  next  day  was  the  Sabbath,  and  Monday  had  been  appointed  for  the 
royal  sitting.  The  excitement  of  the  court  at  Marly  now  amounted  almost 
to  a  tumult  of  consternation.  Necker,  the  minister,  was  proposing  measures 
of  conciliation,  and  had  drawn  up  a  plan  which  would  probably  have  been 
accepted  by  the  people,  for  none  then  wished  for  the  overthrow  of  the 
monarchy.*  All  the  leaders  in  the  Assembly  were  united  in  the  desire  to 
preserve  the  monarchical  form  of  govermnent.  Surrounded  as  they  were 
by  thrones,  England,  not  America,  was  their  model.  They  wished  for  a 
constitutional  monarchy  where  the  voice  of  the  people  should  be  heard,  and 
where  all  the  citizens  should  live  in  the  enjoyment  of  equal  rights.  Their 
wishes  were  wise  and  noble.  ISTecker,  closeted  in  council  with  the  king  and 
his  cabinet,  had  at  last  brought  the  king  and  the  majority  of  the  cabinet  over 
to  his  views,  when  an  of&cer  of  the  household  came  in  and  whispered  to  the 
king.  The  king  immediately  arose,  and,  requesting  the  council  to  await  his 
return,  left  the  room. 

"  This  can  only  be  a  message  from  the  queen,"  said  M.  de  Montmorin  to 
Necker ;  "the  princes  of  the  blood  have  got  her  to  interfere,  and  persuade  the 
king  to  adjourn  his  decision." 

It  was  so.  After  half  an  hour  the  king  returned,  declined  giving  his  as- 
sent to  the  plan  till  after  another  meeting,  and  dismissed  the  council.  The 
royal  sitting  was  klso  postponed  imtil  Tuesday. 

On  Monday,  the  22d,  the  king  held  another  council  at  Versailles.  His 
two  brothers.  Count  of  Provence  (Louis  XVIII.)  and  Count  d'Artois  (Charles 
X.),  with  four  other  dignitaries  of  the  privileged  class,  met  with  the  council 
and  took  an  active  part  in  their  deliberations.  The  project  of  Necker  was 
here  discussed  and  almost  indignantly  rejected.  And  yet  the  most  earnest 
Royalists  admit  that  it  was  extremely  favorable  to  the  privileged  class,  and 
no  Republican  can  read  it  without  being  surprised  that  so  much  could  then 
have  been  yielded  by  the  people  to  aristocratic  assumption.f     But  still  this 

*  "It  is  quite  certain  that,  mixed  with  a  little  personal  vanity,  the  most  sincere  wish  for  the 
happiness  of  France,  and  the  happiness  of  mankind,  was  the  ruling  motive  with  Necker." — Lec- 
tures on  the  French  Revolution,  hy  Wm.  Smyth,  vol.  i.,  p.  287. 

"Let  us  not  forget  that  at  that  period  the  whole  Assembly  was  Royalist,  without  excepting  a 
single  member." — Michelet,  vol.  i.,  p.  108. 

t  For  a  full  detail  of  this  project  see  CEuvres  de  Necker,  vol.  vi.,  p.  11 9.  Necker  is  condemned  by 
Michelet  with  merciless  severity  for  presenting  a  project  which,  though  it  secured  a  few  reforms, 
still  allowed  the  despotic  court  such  sway.  But  if  the  minister  could  not  carry  even  this  project, 
what  could  he  have  done  with  one  making  still  greater  demands  ?  The  British  government,  witli 
its  king  and  its  houses  of  lords  and  commons,  was  Necker's  model ;  though  he  still  allowed  the 
court  powers  which  would  not  be  tolerated  by  the  people  of  Great  Britain  for  an  hour.  But  the 
French  court  looked  with  contempt  upon  the  limited  powers  of  the  king  and  the  nobles  of  England, 
and  would  consent  to  no  approximation  to  the  government  which  prevailed  there.  The  Tiers 
Etat  would  have  been  more  than  satisfied  with  the  English  Constitution.  No  one  then  desired 
the  overthrow  of  the  monarchy. 


96  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  X. 

plan,  in  wliich  Necker  had  gone  to  the  utmost  extreme  of  concession  to  pro- 
pitiate the  court,  was  peremptorily  rejected,  and  another,  insulting  in  its 
tone,  imperious  in  its  exactments,  and  utterly  despotic  in  its  principles,  was 
adopted,  and  the  Assembly  was  to  be  sternly  dissolved.  Necker  remon- 
strated in  vain,  and  at  last,  in  mortification  and  despair,  declared  that  he 
could  not  countenance  such  a  message  by  his  presence,  and  that  he  should 
be  under  the  necessity  of  resigning  his  ministry.  The  feeble,  vacillating 
king  was  in  judgment  and  in  heart  with  Necker,  as  were  also  one  or  two 
other  of  the  ministers;  but  the  queen,  inheriting  the  spirit  of  Austrian  des- 
potism, acting  through  the  two  brothers  of  the  king  and  the  majorit}^  of  the 
court,  carried  her  point.  This  agitated  discussion  continued  until  midnight 
of  Sunday,  and  then  it  was  too  late  to  propose  the  defiant  message  for  the 
next  day.     The  royal  sitting  was  consequently  postponed  until  Tuesday.* 

To  prevent  the  Assembly  from  meeting  in  the  tennis-court  on  Monday, 
where  the  curates  could  join  them,  the  Count  d'Artois  sent  word  to  the 
keeper  that  he  wished  for  the  tennis-court  on  that  day  to  play.  On  Mon- 
day morning,  when  the  Assembly,  according  to  its  adjournment,  met  at  the 
door,  they  found  the  entrance  guarded,  and  they  were  excluded  under  the 
plea  that  the  Count  d'Artois  wished  for  the  room  for  his  own  amusement. 
Thus  an  Assembly,  now  consisting  of  seven  or  eight  hundred  of  the  most 
illustrious  men  of  France,  the  representatives  of  twenty-five  millions  of 
people,  were  driven  again  into  the  streets,  because  a  young  nobleman  wished 
for  their  room  that  he  might  play  a  game  of  ball. 

Some  of  the  younger  deputies,  exasperated  by  such  treatment,  were  in  fa- 
vor of  forcing  an  entrance.  But  armed  bands,  all  under  aristocratic  officers, 
were  parading  the  streets,  bayonets  glittered  around  the  hall,  and  fifty  thou- 
sand troops  were  within  summons.  The  court  did  not  disguise  its  merriment 
as  it  again  contemplated  the  Assembly  wandering  houseless  like  vagabonds 
in  the  street.  The  nobles  now  felt  exultant.  They  had  compelled  the  king 
to  adopt  their  plan.  The  Assembly  was  to  be  dismissed  in  disgrace,  and  an 
ample  force  of  inflmtry,  cavalry,  and  artillery  was  at  hand  to  carry  out  their 
arrogant  decree.  They  no  longer  feared  the  Assembly.  They  no  longer 
hesitated  openly  to  deride  them.f 

These  representatives  of  the  people,  thus  insulted  beyond  all  endurance, 
were  for  a  time  in  great  perplexity.  It  so  happened,  however,  that  the  cu- 
rates who  had  voted  to  unite  with  the  Third  Estate,  about  one  hundred  and 
forty  in  number,:}:  with  the  Archbishop  of  Vienne  at  their  head,  had  met  in 
the  Church  of  St.  Louis,  intending  to  go  from  there  in  procession  to  join  the 
Assembly.  Tlicy  immediately  sent  to  the  Commons  an  invitation  to  repair 
to  the  church  where  they  were  assembled,  and,  taking  themselves  the  choir, 
left  the  nave  for  their  guests.  The  clergy  then  descended  and  united  with 
the  Commons,  where  they  were  received  with  shouts,  embracings,  and  tears. 
It  was  a  solemn  hour,  and  emotions  too  deep  for  utterance  agitated  all  hearts. 
Fearful  perils  were  now  accumulating.  Kumoi-s  had  reached  the  care  of  the 
deputies  that  the  court  intended  the  violent  dissolution  and  dispei-sion  of  the 

*  Smyth,  Lectures  on  French  Revolution,  i.,  192;   Michelct,  i.,  110.        f  Michelct,  i..  1 10. 
J  M.  Rabaud  dc  St.  Eficnue,  j).  f.n,  snys  that  the  clergy  voted  for  union  one  hundred  and  furty- 
nino  voices  against  one  hundred  and  twenty-six. 


1789.]  THE  NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY.  97 

Assembly.  Thus  would  end  all  hopes  of  reform.  The  troops  marching 
and  countermarching,  the  new  regiments  entering  the  city,  the  hundred 
pieces  of  field  artillery  approaching,  the  cannon  frowning  before  the  door  of 
their  hall,  the  exultant  looks  and  defiant  bearing  of  their  foes,  all  were  por- 
tents of  some  decisive  act.* 

The  morning  of  the  23d  of  June  arrived.  It  was  dark  and  stormy.  At 
the  appointed  hour,  ten  o'clock,  the  members  repaired  to  the  hall  of  the  As- 
sembly to  meet  the  king  and  court.  In  various  ways  they  had  received  in- 
timations of  the  measures  which  were  to  be  adopted  against  them,  and  anx- 
iety sat  upon  every  countenance.  As  they  approached  the  hall  they  found 
that  the  same  disrespect  which  they  had  received  on  the  5th  of  May  was  to 
be  repeated  with  aggravations.  The  court  wished  to  humiliate  the  Com- 
mons; they  did  but  exasperate  them.  The  front  entrance  was  reserved  as 
before  for  the  clergy  and  the  nobles.  The  Commons  were  guided  to  a  side 
door  not  yet  opened,  where  they  were  left  crowded  together  in  the  rain. 
They  made  several  endeavors  to  gain  admission,  but  could  not,  and  at  last 
sought  refuge  from  the  storm  in  an  adjoining  shed.f 

In  the  mean  time  the  two  privileged  classes  approached  with  an  unusual 
display  of  pompous  carriages  and  gorgeous  liveries.  Files  of  soldiers  pro- 
tected them,  bands  of  music  greeted  them,  and  with  the  most  ostentatious 
parade  of  respect  they  were  conducted  to  their  seats.  Then  the  side  door 
was  thrown  open,  and  the  Commons,  with  garments  drenched  and  soiled, 
filed  in  to  take  the  back  benches  left  for  them.  They  found  the  aristocracy 
in  their  seats,  as  judges  awaiting  the  approach  of  criminals.  The  nobles 
and  the  high  clergy  could  not  repress  their  feelings  of  exultation.  The  Com- 
mons were  now  to  be  rebuked,  condemned,  and  crushed.:}: 

Military  detachments  patrolled  the  streets  and  were  posted  around  the 
hall.  Four  thousand  guards  were  under  arms,  and  there  were  besides  sev- 
eral regiments  in  the  vicinity  of  Versailles,  within  an  hour's  call.  A  tu- 
multuous mass  of  people  from  Paris  and  Versailles  surged  around  the  build- 
ing and  flooded  all  the  adjoining  avenues.  As  the  carriage  of  the  king 
and  queen,  surrounded  by  its  military  retinue,  approached,  no  voice  of 
greeting  was  heard.  The  multitude  looked  on  silent  and  gloomy.  The 
king  was  exceedingly  dejected,  for  his  judgment  and  heart  alike  condemned 
the  measures  he  had  been  constrained  to  adopt.  The  queen  was  appalled 
by  the  ominous  silence,  and  began  to  fear  that  they  had  indeed  gone  too 
far.  When  a  few  voices  shouted  "Vive  le  Due  d'Orleans!"  she  correctly 
interpreted  this  greeting  of  her  implacable  foes  as  an  intended  insult,  and 
was  observed  to  turn  pale  and  almost  to  faint. 

The  king  entered  the  hall  with  the  queen,  his  two  brothers,  and  his  min- 
isters, excepting  Necker.  The  absence  of  Necker  so  exclusively  arrested 
all  thoughts,  that  the  royal  pageant  was  disregarded.     Here  again  the  mon- 

*  "The  nobility  that  I  converse  with,"  writes  Arthur  Young,  "  are  most  dispustingly  tenacious 
of  all  old  rights,  however  hard  they  may  bear  upon  the  people.  They  will  not  hear  of  giving  way 
in  the  least  to  the  spirit  of  liberty  beyond  the  point  of  paying  equal  land-taxes,  which  they  hold 
to  be  all  that  can  with  reason  be  demanded." 

"  It  was  only  very  late,"  writes  Wm.  Smyth,  "  and  when  too  late,  that  they  reached  even  this 
point." 

t  M.  Rabaud  de  St.  Etiennc,  i.,  5G.  t  Id.,  57;  Michelet,  i.,  112. 

G 


98  THE  FRENXII  KEVOLUTION.  [CUAP.  X. 

arch  was  received  in  silence,  interrupted  only  by  faint  applause  from  the 
nobles. 

The  king  hardly  knew  how  to  utter  the  arrogant,  defiant  words  which 
had  been  put  into  his  mouth.  It  was  the  lamb  attempting  to  imitate  the 
roar  of  the  lion.  lie  addressed  a  few  words  to  the  Assembly,  and  then 
placed  his  declaration  in  the  hands  of  one  of  his  secretaries  to  be  read.* 

It  declared  his  intention  to  maintain  the  distinction  of  the  three  orders, 
and  that  they  should  vote  separately ;  that  they  might  occasionally  meet 
together,  with  the  consent  of  the  king,  to  vote  taxes.  The  decree  of  the 
Commons,  constituting  a  National  Assembly,  was  pronounced  illegal  and 
null.  The  deputies  were  forbid  to  receive  any  instructions  from  their  con- 
stituents. No  spectators  were  allowed  to  be  present  at  the  deliberations  of 
the  States-General,  whether  they  met  together  or  in  different  chambers.  No 
innovation  was  to  be  allowed  in  the  organization  of  the  army.  Nobles,  and 
nobles  only,  were  to  be  officers.  The  old  feudal  privileges  were  to  remain 
unaltered.  No  ecclesiastical  reforms  were  to  be  allowed,  unless  sanctioned 
by  the  clerg}^f 

Such  were  the  prohibitions.  Then  came  the  benefits.  The  king  prom- 
ised to  sanction  equality  of  taxation,  whenever  the  clergy  and  the  nobles  should 
consent  to  such  taxation.  The  king  promised  to  adopt  any  measures  of  finance 
and  expenditure  which  the  States-General  should  recommend,  if  he  judged 
such  measures  comjyatible  with  the  I'inr/ly  dignity.  He  invited  the  States — 
which,  be  it  remembered,  were  to  be  assembled  in  three  chambers,  the  clergy 
and  the  nobility  being  thus  able  to  outvote  the  Commons  by  two  votes  to 
one — to  lyropose  measures  for  abolishing  lettres  de  cachet,  measures  which 
should  not  interfere  with  the  power  of  repressing  sedition,  and  of  secretly 
punishing  those  whose  relatives  would  be  dishonored  by  their  being  brought 
to  trial.  They  were  also  invited  to  seek  the  means  of  reconciling  liberty  of 
the  press  with  the  respect  due  to  religion  and  to  the  honor  of  the  citizens. 
In  conclusion,  the  king  threatened  that  if  the  Commons  refused  obedience 
to  these  declarations  he  would  immediately  dissolve  the  States,  and  again 
take  the  reins  of  government  entirely  into  his  own  hands.  This  address 
was  closed  with  the  following  words : 

"I  command  you,  gentlemen,  immediately  to  disperse,  and  to  repair  to- 
morrow morning  to  the  chambers  appropriate  to  your  order.":}: 

*  Hist.  Pari.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  15. 

t  "The  nobles  having  a]>])laucled  the  article  consecrating  feudal  rights,  loud,  distinct  voices 
were  heard  to'utter,  'Silence  there!'" — Michckt,  vol.  i.,  \>.  llo. 

X  Mr.  Alison  strangely  says  that  "These  decrees  contained  the  whole  elements  of  rational 
freedom,  abolished  pecuniary  ])rivileges,  regulated  the  expenses  of  the  royal  household,  secured 
the  liberty  of  the  i)rcss,  regulated  the  criminal  code,  and  the  jjcrsonal  freedom  of  the  subject." 
— Alison,  Hist,  of  Eurojte,  vol.  i.,  p.  74.  The  French  i)eo])le  did  not  think  so.  See  Michelcl's 
indignant  rtyection  of  the  mockery  of  these  decrees. — Mivli.,  Hint.  Ft:  Jicv.,  vol.  i.,  j).  11.").  M. 
Uabaud  dc  St.  Etienne,  member  of  the  Assembly,  writes,  "In  those  benefits  which  the  king 
wa«  thus  promising  to  the  nation,  no  mention  was  made  either  of  the  constitution  so  much  de- 
sired, or  <jf  the  j)artici|)ation  of  the  States-General  in  all  acts  of  legislation,  or  of  the  resixmsi- 
iiility  of  ministers,  or  of  the  liberty  of  the  i>ress;  and  almost  every  thing  which  constitutes  civil 
liiwrty  was  passed  over  in  total  silence.  Nevertheless,  the  jtretensions  of  the  privileged  orders 
were  maintained,  the  (lesi)otism  of  the  ruler  was  sanctioned,  and  the  States-General  were  abased 
ami  subje<t  to  his  ])ower." — Hist,  of  liev.  of  Fr.,  vol.  i.,  p.  50. 

The  Munjuia  of  Ecrricrcs  writes,  "The  liull  was  surrounded  by  soldiers  and  by  guards.     Ev- 


1789.]  EEVOLUTIONARY  MEASURES.  99 

The  king  then,  with  his  attendant  court,  left  the  hall.  A  large  part  of 
the  nobility  and  nearly  all  the  bishops  followed  him.  Exultation  beamed 
upon  their  faces,  for  they  supposed  that  the  National  Assembly  was  now 
effectually  crushed. 


CHAPTEE  XL 

REVOLUTIONARY  MEASURES. 


Speech  of  Mirabeau. — Approach  of  the  Soldiers  and  Peril  of  the  Assembly. — Elation  of  the 
Queen. — Triumph  of  Necker. — Embarrassment  of  the  Bishops  and  the  Nobles. — Letter  of  the 
King. — The  Bishops  and  Nobles  join  the  Assembly. — Desperate  Resolve  of  the  Nobles. — The 
Troops  sympathizing  with  the  People. 

As  the  king,  followed  by  the  nobles  and  the  clergy,  left  the  hall,  the  Com- 
mons remained  in  their  seats.  The  crisis  had  now  arrived.  There  was  no 
alternative  but  resistance  or  submission,  rebellion  or  servitude.  For  a  mo- 
ment there  was  an  entire  silence.  But  the  spirit  of  indomitable  determina- 
tion glowed  on  every  cheek.  Mirabeau  was  the  first  to  rise.  In  a  few  of 
those  impassioned  sentences,  which  pealed  over  France  like  clarion  notes,  he 
exclaimed, 

"Why  this  dictatorial  language,  this  train  of  arms,  this  violation  of  the 
national  sanctuary  ?  Who  is  it  who  gives  commands  to  us — to  us  to  whom 
alone  twenty-five  millions  of  men  are  looking  for  happiness  ?  Let  us  arm 
ourselves  with  our  legislative  authority,  remember  our  oath — that  oath  which 
does  not  permit  us  to  separate  until  we  have  established  the  constitution  !"* 

While  he  was  yet  speaking  the  Marquis  of  Breze,  one  of  the  officers  of 
the  king,  perceiving  that  the  Assembly  did  not  retire,  advanced  into  the  cen- 
tre of  the  hall,  and,  in  a  loud  authoritative  voice,  a  voice  at  whose  command 
nearly  fifty  thousand  troops  were  ready  to  march,  demanded, 

"  Did  you  hear  the  commands  of  the  king?" 

"Yes,  sir,"  responded  Mirabeau,  with  a  glaring  eye  and  a  thunder  tone 
which  made  Breze  quail  before  him,  "we  did  hear  the  king's  command ;  and 
you,  who  have  neither  seat  nor  voice  in  this  house,  are  not  the  person  to  re- 
mind us  of  his  speech.  Go,  tell  those  who  sent  you  that  we  are  here  by  the 
power  of  the  people,  and  that  nothing  shall  drive  us  hence  but  the  power  of 
the  bayonet."f 

cry  thing  about  the  throne  was  silent  and  melancholy.  The  declaration  itself  satisfied  no  one : 
and  the  king  spoke  rather  like  a  despot  who  commanded  than  a  monarch  who  discussed  with 
the  representatives  of  his  people  the  interests  of  a  great  nation." 

*  The  curate,  M.  Rabaud  de  St.  Etienne,  one  of  the  most  illustrious  members  of  the  Assem- 
bly, and  who  finally  perished  on  the  guillotine,  writes,  "These  memorable  expressions  have  been 
since  engraved  upon  the  bust  of  Mirabeau  which  was  executed  for  the  society  of  Friends  to  the 
Constitution.  A  print  of  this  hath  been  struck  oft',  in  which  we  behold,  not  the  downcast  look  of 
a  cunning  conspirator,  but  the  ardent  air  and  attitude  of  a  noble-hearted  man,  who  sincerely 
meant  the  welfare  of  his  country;  and  such  a  man  was  Afirabeau." 

t  Michelet,  vol.  i.,  p.  116.  "In  the  middle  of  the  night  Bailly  was  called  up  and  privately 
informed  that  Necker  disapproved  of  the  measures  adopted,  and  that  he  would  not  attend  the 
sitting,  and  would  probably  be  dismissed.  It  had  been  settled  between  Bailly  and  the  Assembly 
that  no  reply  should  be  made  to  the  king  whatever  he  might  say  to  them.  It  was  afterward  in- 
timated to  Bailly  by  the  king,  that  he  wished  no  reply  to  be  made.     And  under  these  most  un- 


100  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XL 

The  officer,  the  marquis,  turned  to  the  president,  as  if  inquiring  his  de- 
cision. 

"The  Assembly,"  said  M.  Bailly,  "resolved  yesterday  to  sit  after  the 
royal  session.     That  question  must  be  discussed." 

"Am  I  to  carry  that  answer  to  the  king?"  inquired  the  marquis. 

"Yes,  sir,"  replied  the  president.  The  marquis  departed.  Armed  soldiers 
now  entered  the  hall  accompanied  by  workmen  to  take  away  the  benches 
and  dismantle  the  room.  Soldiers  surrounded  the  building  and  the  life- 
guard advanced  to  the  door.  But  a  word  from  the  president  arrested  the 
workmen,  and  they  stood  with  their  tools  in  their  hands  contemplating  with 
admiration  the  calm  majesty  of  the  Assembly.  The  bodj'-guard  had  now 
formed  a  line  in  front  of  the  hall,  and  the  position  of  its  members  was  full 
of  peril.  It  was  expected  that  all  the  prominent  deputies  would  be  arrested. 
A  vote  was  then  passed  declaring  the  person  of  each  member  of  the  Assem- 
bly inviolable,  and  pronouncing  any  one  guilty  of  treason  who  should  at- 
tempt to  arrest  any  one  of  the  representatives  of  the  nation. 

In  the  mean  time  the  nobility  were  in  exultation.  They  deemed  the  pop- 
idar  movement  now  effectually  crushed.  In  a  crowd  they  hastened  to  the 
residences  of  the  two  brothers  of  the  king,  the  Count  of  Provence  and  Count 
d'Artois,  with  their  congratulations.  They  then  repaired  to  the  queen  and 
assured  her  that  the  work  was  done  and  that  all  was  safe.  The  queen  was 
much  elated,  and  received  them  with  smiles.  Presenting  to  them  her  son, 
the  young  dauphin,  she  said,  '■'•  I  intriLst  him  to  the  nohility.'''' 

But  at  this  very  moment  loud  shouts  were  heard  in  the  streets,  swelling 
in  a  roar  of  tumult  from  countless  voices,  which  penetrated  the  inmost  apart- 
ments of  the  Palace  of  Versailles.  All  were  eager  to  ascertain  the  cause. 
The  whole  body  of  the  people  by  a  simultaneous  movement  had  gathered 
around  the  apartments  of  M.  Necker,  and  were  enthusiastically  applauding 
him  for  refusing  to  attend  the  royal  sitting. 

This  manifestation  of  popular  feeling  was  so  decisive,  that  alarm  took  the 
place  of  joy.  Even  the  fears  of  the  queen  were  aroused,  and  Necker  was 
promptly  sent  for.  He  entered  the  palace  accompanied  by  a  crowd  of  many 
thousands  who  filled  the  vast  court-yard.  Both  king  and  queen  entreated 
Necker  to  withdraw  his  resignation,  the  king  good-naturedly  saying,  ''  For 
my  part  I  am  not  at  all  tenacious  about  that  declaration." 

Necker  willingly  complied  with  their  request.*  As  he  left  the  palace  he 
informed  the  multitude  that  he  should  remain  at  his  post.  The  announce- 
ment was  received  with  unbounded  demonstrations  of  joy.  As  the  exultant 
shouts  of  the  j)opulaec  resounded  through  the  castle,  Brczc  entered  to  inform 
the  king  that  the  deputies  still  continued  their  sitting,  and  asked  for  orders. 
The  king  impatiently  walked  once  or  twice  up  and  down  tlie  lloor,  and  then 
replied  hastily,  "Very  well!  leave  them  alone." 

The  next  day,  AVednesday,  June  24th,  the  Assembly  met  in  its  hall  and 
transacted  business  as  quietly  as  if  there  had  been  no  interruption.  Tlie 
clergy,  who  had  joined  them  in  the  Church  of  St.  Louis,  still  resolutely  con- 
tinued with  them,  notwithstanding  the  ])rohibition,  and  this  day  one  llalf  of 

r>rtunatc  circumstances  tlic  royal  sitting  (.]Knecl."— /.c,.7«re.«  on  the  French  Revolution,  by  William 
Smyth,  vol.  i.,  p.  2G9.  *  Michelet,  vol.  i./j..  1 18. 


1789.]  KEVOLUTIONARY  MEASUHE&.  101 

the  remaining  clergy  joined  the  Assembly.  A  few  individuals  from  the 
nobles  had  also  gone  over.  These  two  bodies  thus  broken  were  now  quite 
powerless,  and  were  fast  sinking  into  insignificance.  Thousands  continually 
thronged  the  galleries  and  th€  aisles  of  the  National  Asembly,  while  no  one 
seemed  to  turn  a  thought  to  the  two  chambers  where  the  few  remaining 
clergy  and  the  nobles  were  separately  lingering. 

The  next  day,  June  26th,  after  a  long  and  exciting  debate,  in  which  the 
overwhelming  majority  of  the  nobles  resolved  to  remain  firm  in  opposi- 
tion to  union,  forty -seven  of  their  number,  led  by  the  Duke  of  Orleans  and 
La  Fayette,  and  embracing  many  of  the  most  eminent  for  talent  and  virtue, 
repaired  to  the  Assembly,  where  they  were  received  with  hearty  demonstra- 
tions of  joy.  One  of  the  nobles,  Clermont  Tonnere,  speaking  in  behalf  of 
the  rest,  said, 

"  We  yield  to  our  conscience,  but  it  is  with  pain  that  we  separate  from 
our  colleagues.  We  have  come  to  concur  in  the  public  regeneration.  Each 
of  us  will  let  you  know  the  degree  of  activity  which  his  mission  allows  him."* 

The  king  now  wrote  a  letter  to  his  "faithful  clergy"  and  his  "loyal  no- 
bility," urging  them  to  join  the  Assembly  without  farther  delay.  In  com- 
pliance with  this  request,  the  next  day,  June  27th,  the  remaining  portion  of 
the  nobility  and  of  the  clergy  entered  the  hall  and  united  with  the  Third 
Estate.  The  Marquis  of  Ferrieres,  who  was  one  of  the  nobles  who  at  this 
time  united  with  the  Assembly,  records, 

"It  was  now  a  grievous  mortification  and  affliction  to  the  nobility  to  join 
the  Third  Estate.  The  Vicomte  de  Noailles  assured  the  nobles  that  the  union 
would  be  but  temporary ;  that  the  troops  were  coming  up,  and  that  in  fifteen 
days  every  thing  would  be  changed.  The  king  sent  a  second  letter  assuring 
the  nobles  that  the  safety  of  the  state  and  his  own  personal  security  depend- 
ed upon  the  union.  The  assembly  of  nobles  rose  in  a  tumultuous  manner, 
they  were  joined  by  the  minority  of  the  clergy,  and  entered  in  silence  the 
hall  of  the  Tiers  EtaC 

But  the  nobles  and  the  dignitaries  of  the  Church  had  hardly  entered  the 
hall  of  the  Assembly  ere  they  regretted  the  step.  The  Assembly  was  pro- 
ceeding energetically  in  the  formation  of  a  constitution  which  would  swee]) 
away  abuses.  "Many  of  the  nobles,"  says  Ferrieres,  with  wonderful  frank- 
ness, "  would  have  quitted  the  Assembly,  but  a  partial  secession  would  have 
done  nothing.  They  were  assured  that  the  troops  were  coming  up,  were 
praised  for  the  resistance  they  had  already  made,  and  were  urged  that  the}^ 
must  dissemble  a  little  longer.  And,  indeed,  thirty  regiments  were  now 
marching  upon  Paris.  The  pretext  was  public  tranquillity ;  the  real  object 
the  dissolution  of  the  Assembly."  Many  petty  artifices  were  resorted  to  still 
to  keep  up  the  appearance  of  distinct  orders.  The  very  day  of  the  junction 
they  endeavored  to  eject  M.  Bailly,  a  citizen,  from  the  presidency,  and  to 
place  a  clerical  noble,  the  Cardinal  de  la  Eochefoucault,  in  the  chair.  The 
movement  was  promptly  checked.f  They  for  some  time  entered  in  a  body 
after  the  openings  of  the  sittings,  and  stood  together,  declining  to  sit  down 
with  the  deputies.  But  M.  Bailly,  by  his  prudence  and  firmness,  upheld  the 
rights  of  the  Assembly,  and  maintained  the  dignity  of  his  post.  It  was  in- 
*  Thiers,  Fr.  Rev.,  vol.  i.,  p.  51.  f  Bailly's  Mem.,  vol.  i.,  p.  252,  257,  2G0. 


102  ■  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ClIAP.  XI. 

deed  a  strange  spectacle  for  France  to  see  a  plain  citizen,  illustrious  only  in 
virtue  and  talent,  })residing  over  the  proudest  nobles  and  the  highest  dig- 
nitaries of  the  Church. 

The  leading  members  of  the  Assembly  were  patriots  seeking  reform,  not 
revolution.     It  was  expected  that  this  union  would  promote  harmony. 

"How  honorable,"  said  Mirabeau,  "will  it  be  for  France  that  this  great 
revolution  has  cost  humanity  neither  offenses  nor  crimes."  After  describing 
the  sanguinary  scenes  which  accompanied  the  revolutions  in  England  and 
America,  he  continued,  "  We,  on  the  contrary,  have  the  happiness  to  see  a 
revolution  of  the  same  nature  brought  about  by  the  mere  union  of  enlight- 
ened minds  with  patriotic  intentions.  Our  battles  are  only  discussions.  Our 
enemies  are  only  prejudices  that  may  indeed  be  pardoned.  Our  victories, 
our  triumphs,  so  far  from  being  cruel,  will  be  blessed  by  the  very  conquered 
themselves. 

"  History  too  often  records  actions  which  are  worthy  only  of  the  most 
ferocious  animals ;  among  whom,  at  long  intervals,  we  can  sometimes  distin- 
guish heroes.  There  is  now  reason  to  hope  that  we  have  begun  the  history 
of  man,  the  history  of  brothers,  who,  born  for  mutual  happiness,  agree  even 
when  they  vary,  since  their  objects  are  the  same  and  their  means  onlv  arc 
different." 

This  triumph  of  the  Third  Estate  exasperated  the  privileged  classes,  and 
they  were  eager  for  revenge.  It  was  evident  that  their  exclusive  power  was 
imperiled,  and  they  resolved,  at  whatever  exj^ense  of  bloodshed,  to  secure 
the  dissolution  of  the  Assembly.  It  soon  became  manifest  to  all  that  vio- 
lence was  meditated ;  that  a  secret  conspiracy  was  ripening ;  that  the  nobles 
had  united  with  the  Assembly  merely  to  subserve  a  momentary  purjiose,  and 
that  the  Assembly  was  to  be  dispersed  by  force,  the  leaders  punished,  and 
that  all  who  should  interfere  for  their  protection  were  to  be  shot  down,* 

"  I  could  never  ascertain,"  writes  Necker,  "  to  what  lengths  their  projects 
really  went.  There  were  secrets  upon  secrets ;  and  I  believe  that  even  the 
king  himself  was  far  from  being  acquainted  with  all  of  them.  What  was 
intended  was  probably  to  draw  the  monarch  on,  as  circumstances  admitted, 
to  measures  of  which  they  durst  not  at  first  have  spoken  to  him.  With 
me,  above  all  others,  a  reserve  was  maintained,  and  reasonably,  for  my  indis- 
l)osition  to  every  thing  of  the  kind  was  decided." 

The  nobles  again  became  arrogant  and  defiant.  Openly  they  declared 
their  intentions  to  crush  the  Assembly,  and  boasted  that  with  an  army  of 
fifty  thousand  men  tlicy  would  bring  the  people  to  terms.f  Loaded  cannon 
were  already  placed  opposite  the  hall,  and  pointed  to  the  doors  of  the  Assem- 
bly. This  state  of  menace  and  peril  excited  the  Parisians  to  the  highest 
pitch,  and  united  all  the  citizens  liigh  and  low  to  defend  their  rights.  TJic 
French  soldiers,  who  came  from  the  humble  homes  of  the  people,  sympa- 
thized in  all  these  feelings  of  their  fathers  and  brothers.     The  women,  as 

♦  F<jr  nhundnnt  proof  of  tlie  consj)irary,  bcc  Memoirs  of  Mnrmontcl,  a  man  of  letters  ami  of 
f  lepant  attainments,  who  resided  in  Paris  at  this  time. 

t  "  IJeforc  the  Revolution  the  number  of  noble  families  in  Franee  did  not  execcd  1 7,r)00.  Reek- 
oninp  five  individuals  to  a  family  there  mifjht  have  been  about  00,000  nobles.  The  disasters  of 
the  Revolution  must  liave  reduced  tliem  to  less  than  i(),(HW."—L' Kiirope  ajircs  le  Congris  d.Ux 
la  Chajxllf,  litf  Abbi!  de  J'railt,  note  at  t/ie*cti(l  o/'chaj).  ix. 


1789.]  THE  TUMULT  IN  PARIS.  103 

they  met  the  soldiers  in  tlie  streets,  would  ask,  "  Will  you  fire  upon  your 
friends  to  perpetuate  the  power  of  your  and  our  oppressors?"  Ere  long- 
there  came  a  very  decisive  response,  "  No !  we  will  not."  Thus  the  soldiers 
who  had  been  collected  to  overawe  the  capital  were  soon  seen  in  most  friend- 
ly intercourse  with  the  citizens,  walking  with  them  arm  in  arm,  compre- 
hending the  issues  which  now  agitated  the  nation,  and  evidently  ready  to 
give  their  energies  to  the  defense  of  the  popular  cause. 


CHAPTEE  XII. 

THE   TUMULT   IN   PARIS. 


Marshal  Broglie. — Gatherings  at  the  Palais  Royal. — Disaffection  of  the  Soldiers. — Imprisonment 
and  Rescue. — Fraternization. — Petition  to  the  Assembly. — Wishes  of  the  Patriots. — Move- 
ment of  the  Troops. — Speech  of  Mirabeau. — New  Menaces. — Declaration  of  Rights. — Dismis- 
sal of  Necker. — Commotion  in  Paris. — Camille  Desmoulius. — The  French  Guards  join  the 
People. — Terror  in  Paris. — Character  of  the  King. 

Notwithstanding  the  National  Assembly  was  thus  organized,  rumors 
filled  the  air  that  the  junction  was  but  transient,  and  that  the  court  was 
making  preparation  for  some  deed  of  violence.  The  citizens  of  Paris  were 
in  a  great  ferment,  all  business  was  at  a  stand,  the  poorer  classes  had  no  em- 
ployment, and  their  families  were  actually  perishing  from  hunger.  Troops 
were  continually  parading  the  streets,  and  an  army  of  fift}^  thousand  men, 
now  placed  under  the  command  of  the  veteran  Marshal  Broglie,  encircled 
the  city  of  Versailles.  The  spacious  garden  of  the  Palais  Eoyal  in  Paris, 
surrounded  by  the  most  brilliant  shops  in  Europe,  was  the  general  rendez- 
vous of  the  populace  anxiously  watching  the  progress  of  events.  The  peo- 
ple in  their  misery  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  meet  together  to  hear  the  news 
from  Versailles.  Often  ten  thousand  men  were  assembled  in  the  garden, 
where  impassioned  orators  harangued  them  upon  their  rights  and  upon  their 
wrongs.  The  Duke  of  Orleans,  with  his  boundless  wealth,  encouraged  every 
insurrectionary  movement.  He  was  willing  so  far  to  renounce  aristocratic 
privileges  as  to  adopt  a  constitution  like  that  of  England,  if  he,  as  the  head 
of  the  popular  party,  could  be  placed  upon  the  throne,  from  which  he  hoped 
to  eject  his  cousin  Louis  XVI. 

It  soon  became  evident  that  there  was  a  Tiers  Etat  in  the  army  as  well  as 
in  the  state.  The  French  Guards,  consisting  of  three  thousand  six  hundred 
picked  men,  in  the  highest  state  of  discipline  and  equipment,  were  stationed 
at  Paris.  They  began  to  echo  the  murmurs  of  the  populace.  The  declara- 
tion of  the  king  had  informed  them  that  no  reform  whatever  was  to  be  tol- 
erated in  the  army ;  that  the  common  soldier  was  to  be  forever  excluded 
from  all  promotion.  The  privates  and  subalterns  were  doomed  to  endure 
all  the  toil  of  the  army  and  its  most  imminent  perils,  but  were  to  share  none 
of  its  honors  or  emoluments.  The  troops  were  governed  by  young  nobles, 
generally  the  most  dissolute  and  ignorant  men,  who  merely  exhibited  them- 
selves upon  the  field  on  parade  days,  and  who  never  condescended  even  to 
show  themselves  in  the  barracks. 

The  discontent  of  the  soldiers  reached  the  ears  of  their  ofiicers.     Appre- 


104  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  Xil. 

hensive  that  by  association  with  the  people  the  troops  might  become  allied 
to  them  by  a  common  sympathy,  the  officers  commanded  the  guards  no 
longer  to  go  into  the  streets,  and  consigned  them  to  imprisonment  in  their 
barracks.  This  of  course  increased  their  exasperation,  and,  being  left  to 
themselves  and  with  nothing  to  do,  they  held  meetings  very  much  like  those 
which  they  had  attended  in  the  Palais  Royal,  and  talked  over  their  griev- 
ances and  the  state  of  the  monarchy.*  Patriotic  enthusiasm  rapidly  gained 
strength  among  them,  and  they  took  an  oath  that  they  would  not  lire  upon 
the  people.  The  colonel  of  the  regiment  arrested  eleven  of  the  most  prom- 
inent in  this  movement  and  sent  them  to  the  prison  of  the  Abbaye,  where 
they  were  to  await  a  court-martial  and  such  punishment  as  might  be  their 
doom.  This  was  the  30th  of  June.f  On  the  evening  of  that  day,  as  a  vast 
and  agitated  multitude  was  assembled  at  the  Palais  Royal,  listening  to  the 
speakers  who  there,  notwithstanding  reiterated  municipal  prohibitions,  gave 
intelligence  of  all  that  was  passing  at  Versailles,  tidings  came  of  the  arrest 
of  the  soldiers.  A  young  man,  M.  Lourtalot,  editor  of  a  Parisian  paper, 
mounted  a  chair  and  said, 

"  These  are  the  brave  soldiers  who  have  refused  to  shed  the  blood  of  their 
fellow-citizens.     Let  us  go  and  deliver  them.     To  the  rescue  !" 

There  was  an  instantaneous  cry,  rising  from  a  thousand  voices  in  the  gar- 
den and  reverberating  through  the  streets,  "  To  the  Abbaye !"  The  throng 
poured  out  of  the  gate,  and,  seizing  axes  and  crowbars  as  they  rushed  along, 
every  moment  increasing  in  numbers,  soon  arrived  at  the  prison,  six  thou- 
sand strong.  There  was  no  force  there  which  could  for  a  moment  resist 
them.  The  doors  were  speedily  battered  down,  the  soldiers  liberated  and 
conducted  in  triumph  to  the  Palais  Royal.  Here  they  were  provided  with 
food  and  lodging,  and  placed  under  the  protection  of  a  citizens'  guard. 

"While  on  their  way  to  the  Palais  Royal  a  squadron  of  cavalry  was  order- 
ed to  charge  upon  the  people.  They  approached  at  full  gallop,  and  then, 
regardless  of  their  officers,  reined  in  their  horses,  and,  lifting  their  caps,  with 
true  French  politeness  saluted  their  citizen-friends.  There  was  then  a  scene 
oi fraternization  such  as  the  French  metropolis  alone  can  exhibit.  Men  and 
women  ran  out  from  the  houses  and  the  shops  presenting  to  the  dragoons 
goblets  of  wine,  shouting  "  Vive  le  Roi !  Vive  la  Nation !":}; 

The  people  were  still  disposed  to  love  their  king.  They  instinctively  felt 
that  his  sympathies  were  with  them.  Thus  far  they  desired  only  reform, 
not  the  overthrow  of  the  monarchy.  The  court,  however,  were  instructed 
by  these  scenes  that  they  could  not  rely  upon  the  French  Guards  to  execute 
the  bloody  mandates  they  were  about  to  issue.  Hence  vigorous  efforts  were 
immediately  adopted  to  concentrate  in  the  metropolis  an  efficient  force  of 
foreign  mercenaries,  Swiss  and  German  troops,  who  would  be  less  scrupu- 
lous in  shooting  down  and  trampling  under  iron  hoofs  the  French  pco])le. 
The  Parisians  distinctly  understood  this  movement,  and  one  can  hardly 

*  "The  French  Guards,  those  generous  citizens,  rebels  to  their  masters,  in  the  lanpxmpe  of 
despotism,  l)nt  faithful  to  tlic  naticm,  are  the  first  to  swcarncvcr  to  turn  their  arms  against  her." 
—M.  linhwtd  (le  St.  Ktirnnf,  vol.  i.,  j..  f,2. 

Mr.  Alison  calls  this  the  "  revolt  and  treason  of  the  French  Guards."  The  same  occurrence  ns- 
8umeH  very  dirtVrciit  uspccts  aa  seen  from  ditVerent  stand-points. 

t  M.  Uabaud  do  St.  Ktiennc.        J  IILst.  Purlementaire,  vol.  ii.,  p.  32.    Michelet,  vol.  i.,  p.  127. 


1789.]  THE  TUMULT  IN  PARIS.  105 

conceive  of  a  measure  more  exasperating.  It  is  worthy  of  record  that  the 
citizens,  ascertaining  that  they  had  hberated  one  soldier  who  was  accused  of 
what  they  deemed  a  crime,  immediately  sent  that  one  back  to  his  prison  cell. 

The  next  day,  July  1st,  the  populace  at  the  Palais  Koyal,  who  were  thus 
far  under  the  guidance  of  the  most  virtuous,  intelligent,  and  influential  citi- 
zens, sent  a  committee  to  the  National  Assembly  at  Versailles  urging  them 
to  interpose  with  the  king  for  a  pardon  for  the  soldiers.  This  was  a  move- 
ment quite  unexampled.  The  citizens,  heretofore  deprived  of  all  political 
rights,  had  never  before  ventured  to  make  their  wishes  known  to  their  rul- 
ers. Even  then  it  was  considered  by  the  privileged  classes  in  the  Assembly 
very  impudent."'^  The  Assembly  very  prudently  sent  back  word  to  the 
Parisians,  exhorting  them  to  refrain  from  all  acts  of  violence,  and  assuring 
them  that  the  maintenance  of  good  order  was  essential  to  the  prosperity  of 
their  cause.f  At  the  same  time  the  Assembly  sent  a  deputation  to  the  king 
imploring  his  clemency  for  the  soldiers. 

Troops  were,  however,  still  rapidly  approaching  the  city  from  different 
parts  of  the  kingdom.  The  nobles  and  the  higher  clergy  were  throwing 
every  possible  obstruction  in  the  way  of  either  deliberation  or  action  by  the 
Assembly,  and  it  was  manifest  to  all  that  a  conspiracy  was  in  progress  for 
its  violent  dissolution.:}: 

The  courtiers  could  not  conceal  their  exultation,  and  began  openly  to 
boast  that  their  hour  of  triumph  was  at  hand.  Fifteen  regiments  of  Swiss 
and  German  troops  were  now  between  Paris  and  Yersailles.  It  was  sup- 
posed that  they,  without-  reluctance,  would  fire  upon  French  citizens.  It 
was  very  evident  that  the  court  was  studiously  endeavoring  to  foment  dis- 
turbances in  Paris,  that  an  appeal  to  the  military  might  be  necessary.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  leaders  of  the  revolution  were  doing  every  thing  in 
their  power  to  keep  the  people  calm.  A  very  able  pamphlet  was  circulated 
through  the  city,  containing  the  following  sentiments : 

"  Citizens !  the  ministers,  the  aristocrats,  are  endeavoring  to  excite  sedi- 
tion. Be  peaceful,  tranquil,  submissive  to  good  order.  If  you  do  not  dis- 
turb the  precious  harmony  now  reigning  in  the  National  Assembly,  a  revo- 
lution the  most  salutary  and  the  most  important  will  be  irrevocably  con- 
summated, without  causing  the  nation  blood  or  humanity  tears." 

One  is  bewildered  in  learning  that  these  sentiments  came  from  the  pen 
of  Jean  Paul  Marat  !§ 

The  next  day,  the  2d  of  July,  the  king  returned  an  answer  to  the  depu- 
tation from  the  Assembly,  that  the  soldiers  should  be  pardoned  as  soon  as 
order  was  re-established  in  the  capital.     Upon  the  receipt  of  the  message  at 

*  Histoire  des  Montagnards,  par  Alphonse  Esquiros,  p.  15.  f  Thiers,  vol.  i.,  p.  61. 

+  "While  on  this  subject  I  can  not  refrain  from  remarking  on  the  impolitic  conduct  of  the 
nobles  and  the  bishops.  As  they  aimed  only  to  dissolve  the  Assembly,  to  throw  discredit  on  its 
operations,  when  the  president  stated  a  question  they  left  the  hall,  inviting  the  deputies  of  their 
party  to  follow  them.  With  this  senseless  conduct  they  combined  an  insulting  disdain,  both  of 
the  Assembly  and  of  the  people  who  attended  the  sittings.  Instead  of  listening,  they  laughed 
and  talked  aloud,  thus  confirming  the  people  in  the  unfavorable  opinion  which  it  had  conceived 
of  them ;  and  instead  of  striving  to  recover  the  confidence  and  the  esteem  of  the  people,  they 
strove  only  to  gain  their  hatred  and  contempt." — Ferrieres,  t.  ii.,  p.  122. 

§  Histoire  des  Montagnards,  par  Alphonse  Esquiros,  p.  15. 


106  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XII. 

the  Palais  Royal,  the  guards  were  taken  back  to  prison,  from  whence  they 
were  speedily  released  by  a  pardon  from  the  king. 

On  the  3d  of  July,  M.  Bailly  having  resigned  the  presidency  of  the  As- 
sembly, the  Archbishop  of  Vienne,  one  of  the  high  clergy,  who  had  warmly 
espoused  the  popular  cause,  was  chosen  president,  and  the  Marquis  de  la 
Fayette,  equally  devoted  to  popular  rights,  was  elected  vice-president. 
Thus  the  two  most  important  offices  of  the  Assembly  were  conferred  upon 
men  selected  from  the  highest  ranks  of  the  privileged  class.  But  this  act 
of  conciliation  did  not  in  the  least  degree  conciliate  men  who  were  deter- 
mined at  every  hazard  to  perpetuate  despotism. 

The  aspect  of  affiiirs  was  every  hour  becoming  more  threatening.  New 
regiments  of  foreigners  were  continually  marching  into  the  metropolis,  and 
occupying  all  the  avenues  which  conducted  to  Paris  and  Versailles.  Squad- 
rons of  horse  were  galloping  through  the  streets  and  heavy  artillery  rum- 
bling over  the  pavements  of  both  the  cities.  The  Elysian  Fields,  the  Place 
Louis  XY.,  the  Field  of  Mars,  presented  the  aspect  of  an  encampment. 
Sentinels  were  placed  around  the  French  Guards,  who  were  confined  in 
their  barracks,  to  prevent  them  from  holding  any  intercourse  with  the  citi- 
zens or  with  the  other  soldiers.*  Versailles  was  encompassed  by  armies, 
and  a  battery  of  artillery  was  pointed  at  the  very  doors  of  the  Assembly. 

On  Friday,  the  10th  of  July,f  Mirabeau  rose  in  the  Assembly,  and  pro- 
posed that  the  discussion  of  the  Constitution  should  be  suspended  while  a 
petition  was  sent  to  the  king  urging  the  removal  of  these  menacing  armies. 

"Fresh  troops,"  said  he,  "are  daily  advancing;  all  communications  arc 
intercepted.  All  the  bridges  and  promenades  are  converted  into  military 
posts.  Movements,  public  and  secret,  hasty  orders  and  counter-orders,  meet 
all  eyes.  Soldiers  are  hastening  hither  from  all  quarters.  Thirty-five  thou- 
sand men  are  already  cantoned  in  Paris  and  Versailles.  Twenty  thousand 
more  are  expected.  They  are  followed  by  trains  of  artillery ;  spots  arc 
marked  for  batteries ;  every  communication  is  secured,  every  pass  is  blocked 
up ;  our  streets,  our  bridges,  our  public  walks  are  converted  into  military 
stations.  Events  of  public  notoriety,  concealed  facts,  secret  orders,  precipi- 
tate counter-orders — in  a  word,  preparations  for  war  strike  every  eye  and 
fill  every  heart  with  indignation." 

At  the  same  time  a  pamphlet  was  circulated  through  Paris,  stating  that 
the  king  was  to  hold  anotlicr  royal  sitting  on  the  13th ;  that  he  had  deter- 
mined to  enforce  his  declarations  of  the  23d  of  June ;  that  the  National  As- 
sembly was  to  be  dissolved  by  violence,  its  leaders  arrested,  and  Necker  to 
be  driven  from  the  kingdom. 

The  tidings  excited  great  consternation  in  the  city,  and  the  crowd  in  tho 
Palais  Koyal  began  to  talk  of  arming  in  self-defense.  In  the  evening  of 
that  day  an  artilh^ry  comi)any,  which  had  been  posted  at  the  Hotel  des  In- 
valides,  came  to  the  Palais  Koyal  to  fraternize  with  the  people  there.  The 
citizens  gave  th?m  a  supper  in  the  Elysian  Fields,  where  they  were  joined 
by  many  troops  from  other  regiments,  and  the  friendly  festivities  were  con- 
tinued late  into  tlie  hours  of  the  warm  summer  night.j: 

*  Frnnco  nnd  its  Ucvolutions,  by  GeorRo  LonR,  Esq.  t  Some  nutboritios  sny  tbc  9tb. 

J  France  und  its  Revolutions,  by  George  Long,  Esq.,  vol.  i.,  p.  25. 


1789.]  THE  TUMULT  IN  TARIS.  107 

This  speecli  of  Mirabeau  was  received  witli  applause,  and  a  deputation  of 
twenty -four  members  was  sent  with  a  petition  to  the  king.  The  address  was 
drawn  up  by  Mirabeau,  and  is  of  world-wide  celebrity.* 

"  It  is  not  to  be  dissembled,"  says  Bailly,  "  that  Mirabeau  was  in  the  As- 
sembly its  principal  force.  Nothing  could  be  more  grand,  more  firm,  more 
worthy  of  the  occasion  than  this  address  to  the  king.  The  great  quality  of 
Mirabeau  was  boldness.  It  was  this  that  fortified  his  talents,  directed  him 
in  the  management  of  them,  and  developed  their  force.  Whatever  might  be 
his  moral  character,  when  he  was  once  elevated  by  circumstances  he  as- 
sumed grandeur  and  purity,  and  was  exalted  by  his  genius  to  the  full  height 
of  courage  and  virtue." 

Though  Necker  earnestly  advised  the  removal  of  the  troops,  the  king, 
now  in  the  hands  of  his  worst  counselors,  returned  to  the  Assembly  almost 
an  insulting  answer.  He  affirmed  that  the  troops  were  mustered  for  the 
maintenance  of  public  order  and  for  the  protection  of  the  Assembly ;  and 
that  if  the  members  of  the  Assembly  were  afraid  of  their  protectors,  they 
might  adjourn  to  Noyon  or  to  Soissons,  cities  some  fifty  or  sixty  miles  north 
of  Paris,  where,  removed  from  the  protection  of  the  capital,  they  would  have 
been  entirely  at  the  mercy  of  their  enemies.f 

"  We  have  not,"  Mirabeau  indignantly  retorted,  "  asked  permission  to  run 
away  from  the  troops,  but  have  requested  that  the  troops  may  be  removed 
from  the  capital." 

Upon  the  reception  of  this  answer  from  the  king,  La  Fayette  presented 
the  Assembly  a  declaration  of  rights  based  upon  that  Declaration  of  Ameri- 
can Independence  which  is  almost  the  gospel  of  popular  liberty.  It  is  prob- 
able that  Thomas  Jefferson,  who  was  then  in  Paris,  aided  La  Fayette  in  pre- 

*  It  is  said  that  this  famous  address  to  the  king  was  composed  by  M.  Dumont,  the  leading 
ideas  having  been  communicated  to  him  by  Mirabeau.  A  fjw  extracts  ■will  give  one  an  idea  of 
the  spirit  of  the  piece. 

"In  the  emotions  of  your  own  heart,  sire,  we  look  for  the  true  safety  of  the  French.  When 
troops  advance  from  every  quarter,  when  camps  are  forming  around  us,  when  the  capital  is  be- 
sieged, we  ask  one  another  with  astonishment,  'Hath  the  king  distrusted  the  fidelity  of  his  peo- 
l)le  ?  What  mean  these  menacing  preparations  ?  Where  are  the  enemies  of  the  state  and  of  the 
king  that  are  to  be  subdued?' 

"  The  danger,  sire,  is  urgent,  is  universal,  is  beyond  all  the  calculations  of  human  prudence. 

' '  The  danger  is  for  the  provinces.  Should  they  once  be  alarmed  for  our  liberty  we  should  no 
longer  have  it  in  our  power  to  restrain  their  impetuosity. 

"The  danger  is  for  the  capital.  With  what  sensations  will  the  people,  in  thoir  state  of  indi- 
gence, and  tortured  with  the  keenest  anguish,  see  the  relics  of  its  subsistence  disputed  for  by  a 
throng  of  threatening  soldiers  ? 

"The  danger  is  for  the  troops.  They  may  forget  that  the  ceremony  of  enlisting  made  them 
soldiers,  and  recollect  that  nature  made  them  men. 

"The  danger,  sire,  is  yet  more  terrible.  And  judge  of  its  extent  by  the  alarms  which  bring  us 
before  you.     Mighty  revolutions  have  arisen  from  causes  far  less  striking. 

"Sire,  we  conjure  you,  in  the  name  of  our  country,  in  the  name  of  vour  own  happiness,  and 
your  own  glory,  to  send  back  your  soldiers  to  the  posts  from  which  your  counselors  have  drawn 
them.     Send  back  that  artillery,"  etc. 

t  The  Marquis  of  Ferrieres  acknowledges  the  insincerity  of  the  court  in  the  king's  answer. 
"The  Assembly  saw,"  he  writes,  "through  the  snare  that  was  spread  for  them.  Tliey  would 
have  lost  all  their  hold  if  they  had  once  removed  themselves  from  the  security  which  the  vicinity 
of  Paris  afforded.  Inclosed  between  the  two  camps  (of  Flanders  and  Paris)  they  would  have  found 
themselves  at  the  mercy  of  the  court." — See  also  Hist.  P/iiL  de  la  Rev.  de  France,  pa?-  Anf.  Fan- 
tin  Desodoards,  vol.  i.,  p.  150. 


108  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ClIAP.  XII. 

paring  this  paper.  It  affirmed  that  nature  has  made  all  men  free  and  equal, 
that  sovereignty  resides  in  the  nation^  and  that  no  one  can  claim  authority 
which  does  not  emanate  from  the  people. 

On  the  evening  of  this  day,  Saturday,  July  11th,  as  Necker  was  dressing 
for  dinner,  he  received  a  note  announcing  his  dismissal.  A  confidential  let- 
ter from  the  king  at  the  same  time  informed  him  that  the  monarch  was  un- 
able to  prevent  his  removal,  and  urged  the  minister  to  leave  the  kingdom 
without  delay,  and  not  to  communicate  to  any  one  the  knowledge  of  his  dis- 
missal lest  it  should  excite  public  disturbance.*  Necker,  true  to  the  confi- 
dence thus  reposed  in  him,  quietly  dined,  and  then  taking  his  carriage,  as  if 
for  an  evening  drive  with  his  wife,  took  the  direction  to  the  Netherlands, 
the  nearest  frontier,  and  pressed  on  rapidly  through  the  night. 

The  next  day  was  the  Sabbath,  July  12th,  Early  in  the  morning  an  ex- 
traordinary degree  of  activity  was  observed  among  the  troops.  Infantry 
and  artillery  were  marching  and  countermarching  through  the  streets  of 
Paris  and  Versailles,  The  next  day,  Monday,  was  secretly  appointed  for  the 
great  coup  cVetat,  in  which  the  National  Assembly  was  to  be  dispersed,  and 
the  citizens  of  Paris,  if  they  manifested  any  resistance,  were  to  be  mown 
down  by  grapeshot.  Eedoubts  were  thrown  up  upon  the  heights  of  Mont- 
martre,  where  cannon  could  be  placed  which  would  command  the  metropohs. 
Enormous  placards  were  posted,  enjoining  the  people  to  remain  at  home  and 
not  to  assemble  in  the  streets.  The  numerous  staff  of  Marshal  Broglie  were 
galloping  in  all  directions,  disgusting  the  people  with  their  insolent  and  con- 
sequential airs.f  A  battery  of  cannon  was  placed  at  the  Sevres  bridge,  cut- 
ting off  all  direct  communication  between  Versailles  and  Paris.  The  Place 
of  Louis  XV.  was  filled  with  troops,  presenting  the  aspect  of  an  encampment. 
In  the  adjoining  Elysian  Fields  the  Swiss  Guards,  with  four  pieces  of  artil- 
lery, were  drawn  up  in  battle  array. 

The  people  wondered  what  all  this  meant.  At  an  early  hour  the  garden 
of  the  Palais  Eoyal  was  filled  with  an  anxious  and  inquiring  crowd.  About 
ten  o'clock  an  unknown  person  announced  that  Necker  was  dismissed,  and 
that  a  new  ministry  was  organized,  composed  of  members  of  most  deter- 
mined hostility  to  popular  reform.  These  tidings  explained  the  formidable 
military  display,  and  excited  universal  alarm  and  indignation.  A  young 
man,  Camille  Desmoulins,  sprung  upon  a  table,  his  dress  disarranged,  his 
hair  disheveled,  his  fiicc  filushed,  his  eyes  gleaming  with  indignation  and 
tears,  and,  with  a  pistol  in  each  hand  to  protect  himself  from  the  police, 
shouted, 

"To  arms!  to  arms!  Tliis  dismissal  is  but  the  precursor  to  another  St. 
Bartholomew.  This  night  the  Swiss  and  German  troops  arc  to  march  to  our 
massacre.     We  have  but  one  resource ;  it  is  to  defend  ourselves." 

The  impassioned  cry  was  immediately  echoed  by  the  multitude,  "To 
arms !  to  arms !"  A  rallying  sign  was  needed.  Desmoulins  plucked  a  green 
leaf  from  a  tree  and  attached  it  to  his  hat.  Instantly  all  the  chestnut-trees 
which  embellished  the  garden  were  stripped  of  their  foliage,  and  the  leaf  be- 
came the  pledge  of  union.  The  firush  of  a  moment  had  brought  the  whole 
body  of  the  populace  into  a  recognized  unilbriu  and  a  rude  organization. 

*  >Luluiuc  do  Sliicl's  ConsidcrationH,  etc.,  eh.  xii.  f  Alison,  vol.  i.,  p.  73. 


1789.] 


THE  TUMULT  IN  PARIS. 


109 


CAMILLE  DESMOnLINS  IN  THE  PALAIS   EOYAi. 


An  army  of  more  than  a  hundred  thousand  souls  was  in  an  hour  enlisted, 
inspired  with  deathless  enthusiasm,  and  crying  out  for  leaders  and  for  weap- 
ons. The  movement  was  now  in  progress  which  was  to  scatter  like  chaff 
the  battalions  of  foreign  mercenaries,  and  to  prostrate  in  dust  and  ashes  the 
court  and  the  throne.  But  alas  for  man !  the  flame  which  cheers  the  fire- 
side may  lay  palaces  and  temples  and  happy  homes  in  ruins.  A  new  power 
had  arisen,  and  it  proved  to  be  as  blind  and  ignorant  as  it  was  resistless. 
Had  the  populace  been  imbued  with  Christian  principles  and  intelligence, 
blessings  only  would  have  resulted  from  their  sway. 

In  this  wild  hour  of  turmoil  the  multitude  were  bewildered,  and  knew  not 
what  to  do.  They  had  no  arms,  and  no  recognized  leaders  except  the  Na- 
tional Assembly  at  Yersailles,  from  whom  they  were  now  cut  off  by  detach- 
ments of  troops. 

Near  by  there  was  a  museum  of  wax  figures.  Some  men  ran  to  the  spot 
and  brought  out  busts  of  Necker  and  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  who  was  also, 
it  was  said,  threatened  with  exile.  Decorating  these  busts  with  crape  they 
bore  them  aloft  through  the  streets  with  funeral  honors.  As  the  procession, 
rapidly  increasing  to  many  thousands,  approached  the  Place  of  Louis  XV., 
a  detachment  of  German  troops  were  marched  up  to  charge  them.  But 
these  soldiers  had  but  little  spirit  for  their  work,  and  they  were  speedily  put 
to  flight  by  a  shower  of  stones.  A  company  of  dragoons  then  made  a  charge. 
The  unarmed  procession  was  broken  and  put  to  flight  in  all  directions.  The 
busts  were  hacked  to  pieces  by  the  sabres  of  the  soldiers,  and  one  man,  a 
French  guardsman,  who  disdained  to  run,  was  cut  down  and  killed. 

The  French  Guards  were  all  this  time  locked  up  in  their  barracks,  and  the 
Prmce  of  Lambesc  had  stationed  a  squadron  of  German  dragoons  in  front 
of  their  quarters  to  prevent  them  coming  to  the  aid  of  the  people.     But 


110  TUE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XII. 

nothing  now  could  restrain  them.  They  broke  down  and  leaped  over  the 
iron  rails,  and  liercely  attacked  the  hated  foreigners.  The  dragoons  fled  be- 
fore them,  and  the  Prince  of  Lambese,  who  commanded,  fell  back  upon  the 
garden  of  the  Tuileries,  and,  entering  the  gates,  charged  upon  the  people 
who  were  there.     One  old  man  was  killed  and  the  rest  were  put  to  flight. 

Tho  French  Guards,  however,  immediately  drew  up  in  battle  array,  and 
placed  themselves  between  the  citizens  and  the  royal  troops.  In  the  mean 
time  a  formidable  array  of  Swiss  and  German  troops  had  been  collected  in 
the  Field  of  Mars.  -They  received  orders  to  march  to  the  Place  Louis  XIY. 
and  dislodge  the  French  Guards.  In  obedience  to  the  command  they  march- 
ed to  the  spot,  and  then  reversing  their  arms,  positively  refused  to  Are  upon 
their  comrades.* 

The  populace,  however,  unconscious  of  the  support  which  they  were  re- 
ceiving from  the  soldiers,  were  in  a  state  of  phrensy.  The  women  and  chil- 
dren, who  had  been  passing  the  pleasant  day  in  the  recreations  of  the  Elysian 
Fields,  and  who  had  fled  shrieking  before  the  horses  and  the  sabres  of  the 
dragoons,  speedily  carried  the  tidings  of  the  assault  to  every  part  of  the  city. 
An  indescribable  scene  of  tumult  ensued.  The  multitude  were  running  to 
and  fro  in  search  of  arms.  Upon  all  the  steeples  every  bell  rang  the  alarm. 
A  population  of  nearly  a  million  of  souls  was  agitated  by  the  most  intense 
emotions  of  indignation  and  terror.f 

"It  would  be  difficult,"  writes  Bertrand  de  Moleville,  "  to  paint  the  disorder, 
fermentation,  and  alarm  that  prevailed  in  the  capital  during  this  dreadful 
day.  A  city  taken  by  storm  and  delivered  up  to  the  soldiers'  fury  could 
not  present  a  more  dreadful  picture.  Imagine  detachments  of  cavalry  and 
dragoons  making  their  way  through  different  parts  of  the  town  at  full  gal- 
lop to  the  posts  assigned  them ;  trains  of  artillery  rolling  over  the  pavements 
with  a  monstrous  noise ;  bands  of  ill-armed  ruffians  and  women,  drunk  with 
brandy,  running  through  the  streets  like  furies,  breaking  the  shops  open, 
and  spreading  terror  every  where  by  their  bowlings,  mingled  with  frequent 
reports  of  guns  or  pistols  fired  in  the  air ;  all  the  barriers  on  fire ;  thousands 
of  smugglers  taking  advantage  of  the  tumult  to  hurry  in  their  goods ;  the 
alarm-bells  ringing  in  almost  all  the  churches ;  a  great  part  of  the  citizens 
shutting  themselves  up  at  home,  loading  their  guns  and  burying  their  mon- 
ey, papers,  and  valuable  effects  in  cellars  and  gardens ;  and  during  the  night 
the  town  paraded  by  numerous  patrols  of  citizens  of  every  class,  and  even 
of  both  sexes,  for  many  women  were  seen  with  muskets  or  pikes  upon 

*  Minuet,  vol.  i.,  p.  r>0.     Thiers,  vol.  i.,  p.  02. 

t  The  following  journnl  kcjtt  hy  the  king  during  these  stormy  days  singularly  illustrates  the 
weakness  of  liis  ehara(-ter.  \Vc  give  it  as  found  in  tho  interesting  work,  Jlistoire  des  Montag- 
nnrds,  par  A//i/ioiise  Ksquiros. 

July  \st,  17H!),  Wednejiddij .  Nothing;  deputation  from  the  States.  Timrsday  2d.  Mounted 
liorsehack  at  the  gate  l)u  Main  to  hunt  a  stag  at  Port  Royal ;  took  one.  Friday  3d.  Nothing. 
Saturday  Atli.  Hunted  a  huck  at  Boutard ;  took  one  and  shot  twenty-nine  game.  Sunday  ruh. 
Vespers  and  benediction.  Monday  Cth.  Notliing.  Tnexdny  7th.  Hunted  a  stag  at  Port  Royal ; 
took  two.  Wednesday  Htli.  Nothing.  Thursday  {)lh.  Nothing;  deimtation  from  the  States. 
Friday  U)lh.  Nothing;  answer  to  the  deputation  from  tlie  States.  Saturday  \Oth.  Notliing;  de- 
parture of  M.  Neeker.  Snndny  \'lth.  Notliing;  departure  of  M.  Montmorin,  St.  Priest  and 
Luzerne.     Sunday  VMh.  Nothing;    took  medicine." 

Such  was  tlie  record  of  the  predecessor  of  Napoleon  upon  the  throne  of  Franco  when  the  mon- 
nrcl'v  was  tottering  to  its  foundations. 


1789.]  I'UE  TUMULT  IN  PAIUS.  Ill 

their  shoulders.  Such  is  the  exact  jDicture  of  the  state  of  Paris  on  the  12th 
of  July." 

To  add  to  the  alarm,  a  letter  which  had  been  intercepted  from  Marshal 
Broglie  was  printed  and  circulated  through  the  city,  in  which  the  marshal 
wrote  to  the  Prince  of  Conde  that  the  greater  part  of  the  National  Assembly 
were  hungry  wolves,  ready  to  devour  the  nobility ;  that  with  fifty  thousand 
troops  he  would  quickly  disperse  them  and  the  crowd  of  fools  who  applaud- 
ed them.* 

As  the  sun  went  down  and  darkness  enshrouded  the  city,  the  tumult  in- 
creased, and  the  night  was  passed  in  sleeplessness,  terror,  and  bewilderment. 
All  were  apprehensive  that  the  dawn  would  usher  in  a  dreadful  day.  A 
report  of  the  agitated  state  of  the  metropolis  was  carried  to  the  Assembly  at 
Versailles,  exciting  very  great  anxiety  in  the  minds  of  the  patriots  deliber- 
ating there.  The  nobles  rejoiced.  They  earnestly  desired  such  violence  on 
the  part  of  the  people  as  should  compel  the  king  to  restore  the  ancient  order 
of  things  by  the  energies  of  grapeshot  and  the  bayonet.f 

M.  Bailly,  a  man  of  unblemished  character,  whose  purity  and  whose  pat- 
riotism never  can  be  questioned,  gives  the  following  testimony  to  the  integ- 
rity of  Louis  XYI. : 

"  Despotism  is  what  never  entered  into  the  head  of  the  king.  He  never 
had  any  wish  but  the  happiness  of  his  people,  and  this  was  the  only  consid- 
eration that  could  be  ever  employed  as  a  means  of  influencing  him.  If  anj' 
acts  of  authority  were  to  be  resorted  to,  he  was  never  to  be  persuaded  but 
by  showing  him  that  some  good  was  to  be  attained  or  some  evil  avoided. 
I  am  convinced  that  his  authority  was  never  considered  by  him,  nor  did  he 
wish  to  maintain  it  but  as  the  best  means  of  supporting  and  securing  the 
tranquillity  and  peace  of  the  community.  As  we  are  now  speaking  of  the 
causes  that  produced  this  regeneration  of  the  country,  let  us  state  the  first 
to  be  the  character  of  Louis  XYI.  A  king  less  of  a  good  man  and  ministers 
more  adroit,  and  we  should  have  had  no  revolution." 

*  France  and  its  Revolutions,  by  Geo.  Long,  Esq.,  vol.  i.,  23. 

f  "During  this  day  of  mourning  and  consternation  the  conspirators  gave  loose  to  a  guilty  joy. 
At  Versailles,  in  that  orangery  where  ^vere  lodged,  or,  to  speak  moi-e  properly,  dispersed  in  am- 
buscade, the  German  troops  of  Nassau,  princes,  princesses,  favorites,  male  and  female,  were  en- 
tertaining themselves  with  the  music  of  the  martial  instruments.  They  were  loading  the  soldiers 
with  caresses  and  presents ;  and  the  latter,  amid  their  brutal  orgies,  were  pleasing  themselves 
with  the  thought  of  dispersing  the  National  Assembly,  and  of  subjugating  the  kingdom.  Calam- 
itous night !  when  the  courtiers  were  dancing  to  that  foreign  music,  and  enjoying  the  idea  of 
the  massacre." — 21.  Rahaud  de  St.  Etknne,\o].i.,  p.  6G. 


112  THE  FRENCH  KE VOLUTION.  [ClIAP.  XIII. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

STORMING  THE   BASTILLE. 

The  Assembly  petitions  the  Kinp. — Resolves  of  the  Assembly. — Nan-ative  of  M.  Dumont. — 
Scenes  in  Taris. — The  reojjle  organize  for  Self-defense. — The  new  Cockade. — The  Abbe'  Le- 
fcbvre  d'Orraesson. — Treachery  of  the  Mayor,  Flesselles. — Character  of  De  Launey,  Governor 
of  the  Bastille. — Sacking  the  Invalides. — The  Bastille  Assailed. — Assassination  of  De  Lau- 
uey  and  of  Flesselles. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  in  the  election  of  deputies  to  the  States-Gen- 
eral Paris  had  been  divided  into  sixty  sections,  each  of  which  chose  two 
electors.  These  hundred  and  twenty  electors,  composed  of  the  most  wealthy 
and  influential  citizens  of  Paris,  immediately  met  and  passed  the  night  de- 
liberating respecting  the  anarchy  into  which  the  city  was  so  suddenly 
plunged.  There  were  two  foes  whom  the  city  had  now  equally  to  dread — 
the  court  and  the  mob ;  the  princes,  bishops,  and  nobles  of  the  realm,  with 
the  armies  and  the  resources  of  the  kingdom,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  starv- 
ing multitude,  infuriated  by  misery  and  brutalized  by  ages  of  misrule,  on 
the  other.  These  were  the  two  foes  against  which  the  Revolution  ever  had 
to  struggle.  The  mob  triumphed  in  the  Reign  of  Terror.  Napoleon  rescued 
the  Revolution  from  their  bloody  hands.  The  princes,  with  the  aid  of  all 
the  despotisms  of  Europe,  triumphed  at  Waterloo,  and  the  Revolution  was 
crushed /or  a  time. 

Early  on  Monday  morning,  July  12th,  the  electors  sent  a  deputation  to 
the  National  Assembly  at  Versailles  soliciting  the  estabhshment  of  a  citizens" 
guard  for  the  preservation  of  order.  They  gave  a  true  and  of  course  a  ter- 
rible description  of  the  tumult  prevailing  in  the  city.* 

The  Assembly  immediately  sent  a  committee  of  twenty -four  members  to 
the  king,  entreating  him  to  withdraw  the  foreign  troops  from  the  capital. 
But  the  queen  and  the  court  had  now  obtained  such  an  ascendency  over  the 
feeble-minded  king  that  he  was  constrained  to  send  a  reply  that  he  should 
make  no  change  whatever  in  his  measures,  and  that  the  Assembly  could  ac- 
complish no  useful  purpose  by  interfering  with  matters  in  the  metropolis. 

This  was  the  day  on  which  it  was  supposed  armed  bands  were  to  march 
to  disperse  the  Assembly.  It  was  publicly  stated  at  Versailles  that  a  parlia- 
ment composed  of  the  nobles  was  to  be  suddenly  organized  at  Versailles, 
that  all  the  deputies  of  the  Third  Estate  were  to  be  tried  for  treason,  that 
those  members  of  the  clergy  and  of  the  nobility  who  had  declared  in  their 
favor  were  to  be  consigned  to  perpetual  imprisonment,  and  that  those  who 
liad  been  particularly  active  in  the  cause  of  j)opular  liberty  were  to  be  sent 
to  the  scaffold.f 

*  "Thus  Paris,  without  courts  of  justice,  without  police,  without  a  guard,  at  the  mercy  of  one 
hundred  thousand  men  who  were  wandering  idly  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  and  for  llic  most 
]iart  wanting  bread,  believed  itself  on  the  point  of  being  besieged  from  without  nud  pillaged  from 
within;  believed  that  twenty-five  thousand  soldiers  were  posted  around  to  blockade  it  and  cut  otf 
all  supplies  of  provisions,  and  that  it  would  be  a  prey  to  a  starving  po]>ulace."— .VfwioiV.v  of  ,\far- 
vionlel.  t  Hist.  Thil.  de  la  Rev.  Fr.,  par  Ant.  Fantin  l).-sodt)ards,  t.  i.,  p.  148. 


1789.]  STORMING  THE  BASTILLE.  113 

In  preparation  for  this  event,  tlie  day  before  (Sunda}^,  12tli),  the  new  min- 
istry, bitterly  hostile  to  the  popular  cause,  had  taken  their  seats  in  the  king's 
cabinet ;  Necker,  a  fugitive,  was  hastening  into  the  Netherlands ;  fifty  thou- 
sand troops  under  Marshal  Broglie,  the  most  determined  advocate  of  aristo- 
cratic privilege,  crowded  the  environs  of  Paris  and  Versailles ;  and  the 
troops  on  the  12th  had  been  ordered  to  those  movements  which  were  pre- 
liminary to  the  great  event.* 

Under  such  perilous  circumstances  the  Assembly,  with  a  heroism  which 
was  truly  sublune,  determined,  if  they  must  perish,  to  perish  in  the  discharge 
of  duty.  No  impartial  man  can  read  the  record  of  these  days  without  pay- 
ing the  tribute  of  admiration  to  those  men  who  thus  periled  liberty  and  life 
in  the  cause  of  popular  rights.  "  I  have  studied  history  extensively,"  says 
De  Tocqueville,  "  and  I  venture  to  afl&rm  that  I  know  of  no  other  revolution 
at  whose  outset  so  many  men  were  imbued  with  a  patriotism  as  sincere,  as 
disinterested,  as  truly  great."t 

When  the  Assembly  received  the  answer  of  the  king  refusing  to  with- 
draw the  troops,  the  only  response  it  could  make  was  in  the  passing  of  reso- 
lutions. Unintunidated  by  menaces  which  might  well  appal  the  stoutest 
heart,  they  resolved, 

1.  That  M.  Necker  carried  with  him  the  regrets  of  the  nation. 

2.  That  it  was  the  duty  of  the  king  immediately  to  remove  the  foreign 
troops. 

3.  That  the  king's  advisers,  ofiohatever  ranh,  were  responsible  for  present 
disorders. 

4.  That  to  declare  the  nation  bankrupt  was  infamous.:}: 

These  were  bold  resolves.  The  third,  it  was  well  understood,  referred  to 
the  queen  and  to  the  two  brothers  of  the  king.  The  fourth  branded  with 
infamy  the  measure  which  the  court  had  already  adopted  in  virtually  pro- 
claiming bankruptcy  and  in  making  payments  only  in  paper.§  After  pass- 
ing these  resolutions  the  members  of  the  Assembly  were  in  such  peril  that 
they  deemed  it  best  to  keep  together  for  mutual  protection.  They  voted 
their  session  permanent,  and  for  seventy-two  hours,  day  and  night,  contin- 
ued in  their  seats,  one  half  deliberating  while  the  other  half  slept  upon  their 
benches.  La  Fayette,  who  was  one  of  the  most  resolute  of  this  Spartan 
band,  relieved  the  venerable  president  in  the  labors  of  the  chair.  || 

*  Professor  William  Smyth,  in  his  very  able  and  candid  lectures,  delivered  at  the  University 
of  Cambridge,  England,  though  his  sympathies  are  with  the  court  in  this  conflict,  writes : 

"On  the  whole,  it  appears  to  me  that  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  great  design  had  been 
formed  by  the  court  for  the  dissolution  of  the  National  Assembly  and  the  assertion  of  the  power 
of  the  crown.  That  military  force  was  to  have  been  produced,  and  according  to  the  measure  of 
its  success  would,  in  all  probability,  have  been  the  depression  of  the  spirit  of  liberty,  even  of  na.- 
tional  liberty,  then  existing  in  France.  Less  than  this  can  not  well  be  supposed;  much  more 
may  be  believed." — Lectures  on  the  French  Revolution^  vol.  i.,  p.  251. 

t  The  Old  Regime  and  the  Revolution,  by  M.  de  Tocqueville,  p.  190. 

t  Michelet,  vol.  i.,  p.  136. 

§  "  They  were  going  to  make  payments  with  a  paper  money,  without  any  other  guarantee  than 
the  signature  of  an  insolvent  king." — Michelet,  vol.  i.,  p.  137. 

II  "A  list  of  the  proscribed  had  been  drawn  up  in  the  committee  of  the  queen.  Sixty-nine 
deputies,  at  the  head  of  whom  were  placed  Mirabeau,  Sieyes,  and  Bailly,  were  to  be  imprisoned 
in  the  citadel  of  Metz,  and  from  thence  led  to  the  scaffold,  as  guilty  of  rebellion.     The  signal 

H 


114  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [CmU'.  XIII. 

During  the  whole  of  Monday,  even  the  king  knew  not  what  was  passing 
in  Paris ;  and  the  Assembly,  all  communication  being  cut  off  between  Ver- 
sailles and  the  metropolis,  were  in  a  state  of  most  painful  suspense.  Every 
moment  they  dreaded  receiving  the  news  that  the  city  was  attacked,  and  the 
clangor  of  martial  bands  and  arms  around  them  led  them  momentarily  to 
expect  the  entrance  of  a  military  force  for  their  arrest.  During  the  night 
of  the  13th  but  little  business  was  done,  and  the  wearied  members  remained 
talking  in  groups  or  dozing  in  their  seats. 

Tuesday  morning,  July  l-ith,  dawned — ever-memorable  day.  The  Assem- 
bly, in  the  most  perplexing  anxiety,  resumed  its  labors  of  preparing  a  consti- 
tution. During  the  whole  day  no  definite  tidings  could  be  received  from 
the  city,  and  yet  the  booming  of  cannon  was  heard  proclaiming  serious  and 
sanguinary  trouble.  M.  Dumont,  who  wrote  under  the  nom  de  jjhime  of 
Groenvelt,*  thus  describes  the  scene  of  which  he  was  an  eye-witness : 

"  But  it  was  in  the  evening  (of  July  14th)  that  the  spectacle  exhibited  by 
the  Assembly  was  truly  sublime.  I  shall  not  attempt  to  describe  the  vari- 
ous emotions  of  jo}^,  grief,  and  terror  which  at  different  moments  agitated 
those  who  were  merely  spectators  and  strangers  in  the  Assembly.  But  the 
expression  is  improper ;  we  were  none  of  us  strangers.  For  myself,  I  felt  as 
a  Frenchman,  because  I  felt  as  a  man.  Nothing  could  be  more  distracting 
than  our  uncertainty  concerning  the  state  of  Paris,  from  whence  no  person 
was  suffered  to  stir.  The  Viscount  dc  Noaillesf  after  repeated  interruptions 
had  contrived  at  last  to  get  away ;  but  the  intelligence  which  he  brought 
served  on!}'-  to  quicken  our  impatience  and  increase  our  alarms. 

"  He  knew  that  a  multitude  of  people  in  search  of  arms  had  forced  their 
way  into  the  Hospital  for  Military  Invalids ;  that  the  Bastille  was  besieged ; 
that  there  had  been  already  much  bloodshed ;  that  the  troops  encamped  in 
the  Field  of  Mars  were  expected  every  moment  to  march  to  the  relief  of  that 
fortress,  which  could  not  be  effected  without  deluging  all  Paris  in  blood. 

"  At  this  dreadful  news  the  Assembly  was  penetrated  with  horror.  A 
number  of  the  members  started  from  their  seats  by  a  kind  of  involuntary 
impulse,  as  if  determined  to  hasten  to  the  defense  of  their  fellow-citizens. 
Others  were  for  immediately  bursting  into  the  king's  presence  to  remon- 
strate with  him  on  what  had  happened ;  to  say  to  him  '  Behold  the  fruits  of 
your  counsels ;  hear  the  cries  of  your  victims ;  see  the  destruction  which  is 
about  to  overwhelm  your  capital ;  say,  are  you  the  king  or  the  murderer  of 
your  people  ?' 

"  But  these  tumultuous  emotions  gave  place  to  the  more  temperate  meas- 
ure of  sending  a  numerous  deputation  to  the  king,  to  represent  to  him  the 

aprecd  upon  for  this  St.  Bartholomew  of  the  representatives  of  the  people  was  the  chanRC  of  the 
ministry." — Histoire  des  Montarpiards,  jnr  Alphonse  Esquiros,  p.  15. 

*  Lectures  on  the  French  Revolution,  by  Wm.  Smyth,  vol.  i.,  p.  241. 

t  Louis,  Vi.scount  of  Noaillcs,  was  a  deputy  of  the  nobles.  Witli  La  Fayette,  RochofcMicault, 
and  others  he  warmly  espoused  tlie  cause  of  pojmlar  lil)crty.  lie  voteil  in  favor  of  unitiiip  with 
the  National  Assembly,  and  was  the  first  to  e.xhort  the  clerpj'  and  the  nobility  to  renounce  their 
priviieRes,  as  injurious  to  the  common  weal.  Wiien  the  Revolution  sank  depratled  into  the 
hands  of  low  and  worthless  men,  he  retired  from  tiie  public  sen-ice;  but  when  Napoleon  came 
to  the  rescue,  ho  apain  entered  the  army,  and  was  subseijuently  killed  in  a  battle  witli  the  En- 
glish.— Enc.  Am.,  Art.  Noailles. 


1789.]  STORMING  THE  BASTILLE.  115 

calamities  wliicli  threatened  Paris,  and  again  to  conjure  him  to  remove  the 
army.  A  long  time  elapsed,  and  the  deputation  did  not  return.  No  one 
could  account  for  the  delay.  In  the  mean  time  there  came  a  message  that 
two  deputies  from  the  body  of  electors  at  Paris  desired  admittance.  They 
were  instantly  ordered  in.  Not  a  breath  was  heard ;  every  ear  was  atten- 
tive ;  every  eye  was  strained ;  every  mind  was  upon  the  rack.  From  some 
unaccountable  mistake  it  was  some  time  before  they  entered.  Never  was 
impatience  wrought  up  to  a  higher  pitch.  At  last  they  appeared  at  the 
bar."* 

But  let  us  leave  the  Assembly  listening  at  midnight  of  the  14th  to  the 
narrative  of  the  deputies  from  Paris,  while  we  enter  the  city  to  witness  the 
transactions  there.  At  three  o'clock  Monday  morning  tumultuous  masses 
of  men  were  filling  the  streets.  The  barriers,  at  which  a  tax  had  been  lev- 
ied upon  all  articles  of  food  and  other  merchandise  which  entered  the  city, 
had  been  seized,  set  on  fire,  and  were  now  blazing.  It  was  expected  every 
moment  that  the  troops  would  enter  to  sweep  the  streets  with  grapeshot ; 
and  from  every  steeple  the  tocsin  was  pealing,  summoning  the  people  to 
arms.  Thousands  of  those  who  thronged  the  city,  houseless  wanderers, 
were  haggard  and  wan  with  famine,  and  knew  not  where  to  get  a  mouthful 
of  bread. 

There  was  a  rumor  that  in  the  convents  of  the  Lazarites  a  vast  amount 
of  wheat  was  hoarded  up.  Eesistless,  like  an  inundation,  the  hungry  multi- 
titude  poured  in  at  the  doors  and  filled  the  convent  from  attic  to  cellar. 
They  found  vast  quantities  of  wine  in  the  vaults  and  more  than  fifty  cart- 
loads of  wheat.  They  drank  the  wine  freely,  fed  themselves,  and  sent  the 
wheat  to  the  market  to  be  distributed.  But  they  would  allow  no  stealing. 
One  wretch  who  was  detected  as  a  thief  was  immediately  hung  by  the  pop- 
ulace !f 

They  then  ransacked  the  city  in  pursuit  of  arms.  Every  sword,  musket, 
and  pistol  from  private  residences  was  brought  forward.  The  shops  of  the 
gunsmiths  furnished  a  small  supply.  The  royal  arsenal,  containing  mainly 
curiosities  and  suits  of  ancient  armor,  was  ransacked,  and,  while  all  the 
costly  objects  of  interest  were  left  untouched,  every  available  weapon  was 
taken  away.  The  prison  of  La  Force  was  filled  with  debtors.  The  popu- 
lace broke  down  the  doors  and  liberated  these  unfortunate  men,  incarcerated 
for  no  crime.  The  prison  of  the  Chatelet  was  filled  with  convicts.  These 
felons,  hearing  of  the  tumult  and  of  the  release  of  the  prisoners  of  La  Force, 
rose  upon  their  keepers  and  endeavored  to  batter  down  their  doors.  The 
same  populace,  called  upon  by  the  keepers  of  the  Chatelet,  entered  the 
court-yard  of  the  prison,  and,  with  pike  and  bayonet,  drove  the  convicts 
back  again  to  their  cells. 

*  "The  better  part  of  the  Assembly,"  writes  Ferrieres,  "strangers  to  all  the  intrigues  which 
might  be  going  forward,  was  filled  with  alarm  at  the  sad  reports  that  were  circulating,  and  ter- 
rified at  the  designs  of  the  court,  which  they  were  assured  went  to  the  seizing  of  Paris,  the  disso- 
lution of  the  Assembly,  and  the  massacre  of  the  citizens.  '  In  the  mean  time  the  partisans  of  the 
court  concealed  their  joy  under  an  appearance  of  indifference.  They  came  to  the  sittings  to  sec 
what  turns  the  deliberations  would  take,  to  enjoy  their  triumph,  and  the  humiliation  of  the  As- 
sembly.    The  Assembly  they  looked  upon  as  annihilated." 

t  Michelet,  vol.  i.,  p.  38 ;  Geo.  Long,  Esq.,  vol.  i.,  p.  28. 


116 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


[Chap.  XHI. 


bACKlNG   TUB   KOYAL   AE8ENAL. 


Crowds  were  assembled  around  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  where  the  electors 
had  met,  demanding  arms  and  the  immediate  establisliment  of  a  citizen's 
guard.  But  the  electors  moved  with  great  caution.  They  did  not  feel  au- 
thorized to  establish  the  guard  without  the  approval  of  the  Assembly ;  and 
the  Assembly  had  not  ventured  to  adopt  the  measure  without  the  consent 
of  the  king. 

The  excitement  at  last  became  so  intense,  and  the  importunity  so  press- 
ing, that  the  electors  referred  the  people  to  the  mayor  of  the  city.  Flesselles, 
the  mayor,  was  an  officer  of  the  crown,  but  he  immediately  obeyed  the  sum- 
mons of  the  people,  and  came  to  the  Hotel  dc  Ville.  Here  he  feigned  to  bo 
entirely  on  their  side,  declared  that  he  was  their  father,  and  that  he  would 
preside  over  their  meetings  only  by  the  election  of  the  people.  Tliis  an- 
nouncement was  received  with  a  burst  of  enthusiasm.  It  was  immediately 
decid(!d  that  a  citizen's  guard  should  be  established. 

Paris  then  contained  nearly  a  million  of  inhabitants,  and  ahnost  every 
able-bodied  man  was  eager  to  mount  guard  for  the  protection  of  the  city. 
There  was  no  want  of  men,  but  as  yet  there  was  no  cfftcicnt  organization, 
and  there  were  no  anns.  The  electors  were  very  anxious  to  avoid  insur- 
rection, and  at  first  wished  only  for  a  guard  simjily  strong  enough  to  jiro- 
tect  the  city.  They  tliereforc  decreed  tluit  each  of  tlie  sixty  districts  should 
elect  and  arm  two  liundred  of  its  most  respectable  citizens.  These  twelve 
thousand  men  woidd  constitute  a  very  admirable  police,  but  a  very  poor 
army.    Matters,  however,  were  so  rapidly  approaching  a  crisis,  and  the  peril 


1789.]  STORMING  THE  BASTILLE.  117 

SO  fast  increasing,  tliat  on  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day  it  was  decided  that 
this  citizen's  guard  should  consist  of  forty-eight  thousand  men,  and  that  the 
colors  of  the  cockade  should  be  blue  and  red.  La  Fayette  proposed  that 
they  should  add  white,  the  old  color  of  France,  saying,  "I  thus  give  you  a 
cockade  which  will  go  round  the  world." 

The  electors  then  appointed  a  committee  to  watch  day  and  night  over  the 
safety  of  the  city.  Thus  a  new  and  independent  government,  with  its  strong 
army  of  defense,  entirely  detached  from  the  throne,  was  established  in  a 
day.  It  was  the  sudden  growth  of  uncontrollable  events,  which  no  human 
wisdom  had  planned.  "But  to  whom,"  said  the  mayor,  Flesselles,  "shall 
the  oath  of  fidelity  be  taken?"  "  To  the  Assembly  of  the  citizens,"  an  elect- 
or promptly  replied. 

Every  thinking  man  saw  clearly  that  matters  were  approaching  a  fearful 
crisis.  Marshal  Broglie,  proud  and  self-confident,  was  at  Versailles  in  con- 
stant conference  with  the  court,  and  having  at  his  command  fifty  thousand 
men,  abundantly  armed  and  equipped,  all  of  whom  could  in  a  few  hours  be 
concentrated  in  the  streets  of  Paris.  Bensenval  had  assembled  his  force  of 
several  thousand  Swiss  and  German  troops,  cavalry  and  artillery,  in  the 
Field  of  Mars.  The  enormous  fortress  of  the  Bastille,  with  its  walls  forty 
feet  thick  at  its  base  and  ten  at  the  top,  rising  with  its  gloomy  towers  one 
hundred  and  twenty  feet  in  the  air,  with  cannon,  charged  with  grapeshot, 
already  run  out  at  every  embrasure  to  sweep  the  streets,  commanded  the 
city.  It  was  garrisoned  by  about  eighty  French  soldiers ;  but,  as  it  was 
feared  that  they  could  not  be  wholly  relied  upon,  forty  Swiss  troops  were 
thrown  in  as  a  re-enforcement  who  would  be  as  blindly  obedient  as  the  mus- 
kets they  shouldered.  Every  moment  rumors  were  reaching  the  city  that 
Marshal  Broglie  was  approaching  with  all  his  troops.  Still  no  arms  or  am- 
munition could  be  obtained. 

In  this  state  of  things  a  report  was  brought  that  a  large  quantity  of  pow- 
der had  been  embarked  in  a  boat  from  the  Hotel  des  Invalides,  and  was 
floating  down  the  Seine  to  be  conveyed  to  Yersailles.  The  people  imme- 
diately ran  to  the  Electors,  and  obtained  an  order  to  have  the  powder  seized 
and  brought  to  the  hotel.  It  was  promptly  done.  A  heroic  clergyman,  the 
Abbe  Lefebvre,  who  had  great  influence  over  the  populace,  assumed  the 
perilous  task  of  guarding  the  powder  in  one  of  the  lower  rooms  of  the  Hotel 
de  Ville  and  distributing  it  among  the  people.  For  forty-eight  hours  this 
brave  man  guarded  his  dangerous  treasure  in  the  midst  of  fire-arms  and  the 
surging  of  the  multitude.  A  drunken  man  at  one  time  staggered  in  smoking 
amid  the  casks.* 

Guns  only  were  wanting  now.  It  was  well  known  that  there  were  large 
stores  of  them  somewhere  in  the  city,  but  no  one  knew  where  to  find  them. 

The  mayor,  Flesselles,  who  the  people  now  began  to  suspect  was  deluding 
them  merely  to  gain  time  for  the  royal  troops  to  enter  the  city,  being  urged 
to  point  out  the  depot,  said  that  the  manufactory  at  Charleville  had  promised 

*  "  This  heroic  man  was  the  Abbe'  Lefebvre  d'Ormesson.  No  man  rendered  a  greater  service 
to  the  Revolution  and  the  city  of  Paris." — Michelet,  vol.  i.,  p.  140. 

"  A  patriot,  in  liquor,  insisted  on  sitting  to  smoke  on  the  edge  of  one  of  the  powder-barrels. 
There  smoked  he,  independent  of  the  world,  till  the  Abbe  purchased  his  pipe  for  three  francs, 
and  pitched  it  far."— Carl// le,  vol.  i.,  p.  191. 


128  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [Cm\.P.  XIII. 

to  send  him  thirty  thousand  guns,  and  that  twelve  thousand  he  was  moment- 
arily expecting.  Soon  a  large  number  of  boxes  were  brought,  marked 
"guns."  The  mayor  ordered  them  to  be  stored  in  the  magazine  till  he 
should  have  time  to  distribute  them.  But  the  impatient  people  so  urged  the 
electors  that  they  broke  open  the  boxes  and  found  them  filled  wdth  rubbish. 
Was  the  mayor  deceiving  them?  many  anxiously  inquired.  Flesselles,  much 
embarrassed,  sent  the  people  to  two  monasteries  where  he  said  guns  were 
concealed ;  but  the  friars  promptly  threw  open  the  doors,  and  no  arms  were 
to  be  found. 

It  soon  became  evident  that  Flesselles  was  trifling  with  the  people,  hoping 
to  keep  them  unarmed  until  the  troops  should  arrive  to  crush  them  merci- 
lessly. He  was  well  known  as  a  dissolute  man,  hostile  to  popular  liberty, 
and  was  undoubtedly  a  traitor,  and  a  spy  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  acting  in 
communication  with  the  court.* 

The  electors  now  ordered  thirty  thousand  pikes  to  be  manufactured. 
Every  smith  was  immediately  employed,  every  forge  was  glowing,  and  for 
thirty-six  hours,  day  and  night,  without  intermission,  the  anvils  rang  till  the 
pikes  were  finished.  All  this  day  of  Monday  the  people  thought  only  of 
defending  themselves,  but  night  again  came,  another  night  of  terror,  tumult, 
and  sleeplessness. 

The  Bastille  was  the  great  terror  of  Paris.  "While  that  remained  in  the 
hands  of  their  enemies,  with  its  impregnable  walls  and  heavy  guns  com- 
manding the  city,  there  was  no  safety.  As  by  an  instinct,  during  the  night 
of  the  13th,  the  Parisians  decided  that  the  Bastille  must  be  taken.  With 
that  fortress  in  their  hands  they  could  defend  themselves  and  repel  their 
foes.  But  how  could  the  Bastille  be  taken  ?  It  was  apparently  as  unassail- 
able as  Gibraltar's  rock.  Nothing  could  be  more  preposterous  than  the 
thought  of  storming  the  Bastille.  "  The  idea,"  says  Michelet,  "  was  by  no 
means  reasonable.     It  was  an  act  of  faith." 

The  Bastille  stood  in  the  very  heart  of  the  Faubourg  St.  Antoine,  enor- 
mous, massive,  and  blackened  with  age,  the  gloomy  emblem  of  royal  pre- 
rogative, exciting  by  its  mysterious  power  and  menace  the  terror  and  the 
execration  of  every  one  who  passed  beneath  the  shadow  of  its  towers.  Even 
the  sports  of  childhood  dare  not  approach  the  empoisoned  atmosphere  with 
which  it  seemed  to  be  enveloped. 

M.  de  Launey  was  governor  of  the  fortress.  He  was  no  soldier,  but  a 
mean,  mercenary  man,  despised  by  the  Parisians.  He  contrived  to  draw 
from  the  establishment,  by  every  species  of  cruelty  and  extortion,  an  income 
of  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  a  year.  He  reduced  the  amount  of  fire-wood 
to  which  the  shivering  inmates  were  entitled ;  made  a  great  profit  on  the 
wretched  wine  which  he  furnished  to  those  who  were  able  to  buy,  and  even 
let  out  the  little  garden  within  the  inclosure,  thus  dcjiriving  those  prisoners 
who  were  not  in  dungeon  confinement  of  the  privilege  of  a  walk  there, 
which  they  had  a  right  to  claim.  De  Launey  was  not  merely  detested  as 
Governor  of  the  Bastille,  but  he  was  personallv  execrated  as  a  greedy,  sordid, 
raercileas  man,  Linguet's  Memoirs  of  the  liju<;tille  had  rendered  De  Launey's 
name  infamous  throughout  Europe.     Such  men  are  usually  cowards.     Do 

•  Loui.s  niaiu',  Ilis'dire  tic  la  K.  volittidii  Fnui(,-aisp,  vol.  ii.,  i>.  MS. 


1789.]  STORMING  THE  BASTILLE.  II9 

Launey  was  both  spiritless  and  imbecile.     Had  he  not  been  both,  the  Bastille 
could  not  have  been  taken.* 

Still  the  people  had  no  guns.  It  was  ascertained  that  there  was  a  large 
supply  at  the  Hotel  des  Invalides,  but  how  could  they  be  taken  without  any 
weapons  of  attack?  Sombrueil,  the  governor,  was  a  firm  and  fearless  man, 
and,  in  addition  to  his  ordinary  force,  amply  sufficient  for  defense,  he  had 
recently  obtained  a  strong  detachment  of  artillery  and  several  additional 
cannon,  showing  that  he  was  ready  to  do  battle.  Within  fifteen  minutes 
march  of  the  Invalides,  Bensenval  was  encamped  with  several  thousand 
Swiss  and  German  troops  in  the  highest  state  of  discipline,  and  provided  with 
all  the  most  formidable  implements  of  war.  Every  moment  rumors  passed 
through  the  streets  that  the  troops  from  Versailles  were  on  the  march,  head- 
ed by  ofiicers  who  were  breathing  threatenings  and  slaughter. 

With  electric  speed  the  rumor  passed  through  the  streets  that  there  was 
a  large  quantity  of  arms  stored  in  the  magazine  of  the  Hotel  of  the  Invalids. 
Before  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the  14th,  thirty  thousand  men  were  be- 
fore the  Invalides ;  some  with  pikes,  pistols,  or  muskets,  but  most  of  them 
unarmed.  The  curate  of  St.  Etienne  led  his  parishioners  in  this  conflict  for 
freedom.  As  this  intrepid  man  marched  at  the  head  of  his  flock  he  said  to 
them,  "  My  children,  let  us  not  forget  that  all  men  are  brothers."  The  bells 
of  alarm  ringing  from  the  steeples  seemed  to  invest  the  movement  with  a 
religious  character.  Those  sublime  voices,  accustomed  to  summon  the  mul- 
titude to  prayer,  now  with  their  loudest  utterance  called  them  to  the  defense 
of  their  civil  and  religious  rights.f 

Sombrueil  perceived  at  once  that  the  populace  could  only  be  repelled  by 
enormous  massacre,  and  that  probably  even  that,  in  the  phrensied  state  of 
the  public  mind,  would  be  ineffectual.  He  dared  not  assume  the  responsi- 
bility of  firing  without  an  order  from  the  king,  and  he  could  get  no  answer  to 
the  messages  he  sent  to  Versailles.  Though  his  cannon  charged  with  grape- 
shot  could  have  swept  down  thousands,  he  did  not  venture  to  give  the  fatal 
command  to  fire.  The  citizens,  with  a  simultaneous  rush  in  all  directions, 
leaped  the  trenches,  clambered  over  the  low  wall — for  the  hotel  was  not  a 
fortress — and,  like  a  resistless  inundation,  filled  the  vast  building.  They 
found  in  the  armory  thirty  thousand  muskets.  Seizing  these  and  six  pieces 
of  cannon  they  rushed,  as  by  a  common  instinct,  toward  the  Bastille  to  as- 
sail with  these  feeble  means  one  of  the  strongest  fortresses  in  the  world — a 
fortress  which  an  army  under  the  great  Conde  had  in  vain  besieged  for  three 
and  twenty  days!:}: 

De  Launey,  from  the  summit  of  his  towers,  had  for  many  hours  heard  the 
roar  of  the  insurgent  city.  As  he  now  saw  the  black  mass  of  countless  thou- 
sands approaching,  he  turned  pale  and  trembled.  All  the  cannon,  loaded 
with  grapeshot,  were  thrust  out  of  the  port-holes,  and  several  cart-loads  of 
paving-stones,  cannon-balls,  and  old  iron  had  been  conveyed  to  the  tops  of 
the  towers  to  be  thrown  down  to  crush  the  assailants.  Twelve  large  ram- . 
part  guns,  charged  heavily  with  grape,  guarded  the  only  entrance.  These 
were  manned  by  thirty-two  Swiss  soldiers  who  would  have  no  scruples  in 

*  Michelet,  vol.  i.,  p.  156.  t  Histoire  des  Montagnards,  par  Aljihonse  Esqiiiros,  p.  IG. 

J  M.  Rabaud  de  St.  Etienne,  vol.  i.,  p.  66. 


j^20  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.         [ChaP.  XIII. 

firing  upon  Frenchmen.  The  eighty-two  French  soldiers  who  composed  the 
remainder  of  the  garrison  were  placed  upon  the  towers,  and  at  distant  posts, 
where  they  could  act  efficiently  without  being  brought  so  immediately  into 
conflict  with  the  attacking  party. 

A  man  of  very  fearless  and  determined  character,  M.  Thuriot,  was  sent 
by  the  electors  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville  to  summon  the  Bastille  to  surrender. 
The  draw-bridge  was  lowered,  and  he  was  admitted.  The  governor  receiv- 
ed him  at  the  head  of  his  staff. 

"I  summon  you,"  said  Thuriot,  "in  the  name  of  the  people,  in  the  name 
of  honor,  and  of  our  native  land." 

The  governor,  who  was  every  moment  expecting  the  arrival  of  troops  to 
disperse  the  crowd,  refused  to  surrender  the  fortress,  but  replied  that  he  was 
ready  to  give  his  oath  that  he  would  not  fire  upon  the  people,  if  they  did 
not  fire  upon  him.  After  a  long  and  exciting  interview,  Thuriot  came  forth 
to  those  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville  who  had  sent  him. 

He  had  hardly  emerged  from  the  massive  portals,  and  crossed  the  draw- 
bridge of  the  moat,  which  was  immediately  raised  behind  him,  ere  the  peo- 
ple commenced  the  attack.  A  scene  of  confusion  and  uproar  ensued  which 
can  not  be  described.  A  hundred  thousand  men,  filling  all  the  streets  and 
alleys  which  opened  upon  the  Bastille,  crowding  all  the  windows  and  house- 
tops of  the  adjacent  buildings,  kept  up  an  incessant  firing,  harmlessly  flat- 
tening their  bullets  against  walls  of  stone  forty  feet  thick  and  one  hundred 
feet  high.* 

The  French  soldiers  within  the  garrison  were  reluctant  to  fire  upon  their 
relatives  and  friends.  But  the  Swiss,  obedient  to  authority,  opened  a  deadly 
fire  of  bullets  and  grapeshot  upon  the  crowd.  While  the  battle  was  raging 
an  intercepted  letter  was  brought  to  the  Hotel  de  Yille,  in  which  Bensenval, 
commandant  of  the  troops  in  the  Field  of  Mars,  exhorted  De  Launey  to  re- 
main firm,  assuring  him  that  he  would  soon  come  with  succor.f  But,  for- 
tunately for  the  people,  even  these  foreign  troops  refused  to  march  for  the 
protection  of  the  Bastille. 

The  French  Guards  now  broke  from  their  barracks,  and,  led  by  their  sub- 
altern officers,  came  with  two  pieces  of  artillery  in  formidable  array  to  join 
the  people.  They  were  received  with  thunders  of  applause  which  drowned 
<,'ven  the  roar  of  the  battle.  Energetically  they  opened  their  batteries  upon 
the  fortress,  but  their  balls  rebounded  harmless  from  the  impregnable  rock. 

Apparently  the  whole  of  Paris,  with  one  united  will,  was  combined  against 
the  great  bulwark  of  tyranny.:};  Men,  women,  and  boys  were  mingled  in  the 
light.  Priests,  nobles,  wealthy  citizens,  and  the  ragged  and  emaciate  vic- 
tims of  famine  were  j)rcssing  in  the  phrensied  assault  side  by  side.§     The 

*  "Its  walls,  ten  feet  thick  at  the  top  of  its  towers,  and  thirty  or  forty  at  the  hasc,  might  long 
langli  at  cannon-lmlU.  Its  hiifterics,  firing  down  upon  Paris,  coidd  in  the  mean  time  demolish 
the  whole  of  the  Mnrais  and  the  Faiibi.urg  St.  Antoine.  Its  towers  i>icr(ed  with  windows  and 
loojihoh's,  protected  \>y  double  and  trij)!.'  gratings,  enabled  the  garrison  in  full  security  to  make 
a  dreaiiful  carnage  of  its  assailants."— .J/(r/;rA7,  vol.  i.,  p.  14.^.  t  Thiers,  vol.  i.,  p.  CO. 

t  "Old  men,"  says  Michelet,  "who  have  had  the  happiness  and  the  misery  to  sec  all  that 
lia«  happened  in  this  unprecedented  half  century,  declared  that  the  grand  and  national  achieve- 
ments of  the  Kcpulilic  and  the  ICnijiire  had,  nevertlicicss,  a  jiarliid  non-unanimous  character. 
Rut  that  the  11th  of  July  alone  was  the  day  of  the  whole  people."— .1/i''A«i7,  vol.  i.,  p.  HI. 

§  Ilistoirc  Des  Montagiiards  jiar  Aljihonse  Es(|uiros,  p.  1 7. 


1789.]  STORMING  THE  BASTILLE.  121 

French  soldiers  were  now  anxious  to  surrender,  but  the  Swiss,  sheltered 
from  all  chance  of  harm,  shot  down  with  deliberate  and  unerring  aim  whom- 
soever thej  would.  Four  hours  of  the  battle  had  now  passed,  and  though 
but  one  man  had  been  hurt  within  the  fortress,  a  hundred  and  seventy-one 
of  the  citizens  had  been  either  killed  or  wounded.  The  French  soldiers  now 
raised  a  flag  of  truce  upon  the  towers,  while  the  Swiss  continued  firing  below. 
This  movement  plunged  De  Launey  into  despair.  One  hundred  thousand 
men  were  beleaguering  his  fortress.  The  king  sent  no  troops  to  his  aid ; 
and  three  fourths  of  his  garrison  had  abandoned  him  and  were  already  open- 
ing communications  with  his  assailants.  He  knew  that  the  people  could 
never  pardon  him  for  the  blood  of  their  fathers  and  brothers  with  which  he 
had  crimsoned  their  streets — that  death  was  his  inevitable  doom.  In  a  state 
almost  of  delirium  he  seized  a  match  from  a  cannon  and  rushed  toward  the 
magazine,  determined  to  blow  up  the  citadel.  There  were  a  hundred  and 
thirty-five  barrels  of  gunpowder  in  the  vaults.  The  explosion  would  have 
thrown  the  Bastille  into  the  air,  buried  one  hundred  thousand  people  beneath 
its  ruins,  and  have  demolished  one  third  of  Paris.*  Two  subaltern  officers 
crossed  their  bayonets  before  him  and  prevented  the  accomplishment  of  this 
horrible  design. 

Some  wretches  seized  upon  a  young  lady  whom  they  believed  to  be 
the  governor's  daughter,  and  wished,  by  the  threat  of  burning  her  within 
view  of  her  father  upon  the  towers,  to  compel  him  to  surrender.  But  the 
citizens  promptly  rescued  her  from  their  hands  and  conveyed  her  to  a  place 
of  safety.  It  was  now  five  o'clock,  and  the  assault  had  commenced  at  twelve 
o'clock  at  noon.  The  French  soldiers  within  made  white  flags  of  napkins, 
attached  them  to  bayonets,  and  waved  them  from  the  walls.  Gradually  the 
flags  of  truce  were  seen  through  the  smoke ;  the  firing  ceased,  and  the  crj^ 
resounded  through  the  crowd  and  was  echoed  along  the  streets  of  Paris, 
"  The  Bastille  surrenders."  This  fortress,  which  Louis  XIV.  and  Turenne 
had  pronounced  impregnable,  surrendered  not  to  the  arms  of  its  assailants, 
for  they  had  produced  no  impression  upon  it.  It  was  conquered  by  that 
public  opinion  which  pervaded  Paris  and  which  vanquished  its  garrison.f 

The  massive  portals  were  thrown  open,  and  the  vast  multitude,  a  living- 
deluge,  plunging  headlong,  rushed  in.  They  clambered  the  towers,  pene- 
trated the  cells,  and  descended  into  the  dungeons  and  oubliettes.  Apalled 
they  gazed  upon  the  instruments  of  torture  with  which  former  victims  of 
oppression  had  been  torn  and  broken.  Excited  as  they  were  by  the  strife, 
and  exasperated  by  the  shedding  of  blood,  but  one  man  in  the  fortress,  a 
Swiss  soldier,  fell  a  victim  to  their  rage. 

The  victorious  people  now  set  out  in  a  tumultuo^^s  procession  to  convey 
their  prisoners,  the  governor  and  the  soldiers,  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  Those 
of  the  populace  whose  relatives  had  perished  in  the  strife  were  roused  to 
fury,  and  called  loudly  for  the  blood  of  De  Launey.  Two  very  powerful  men 
placed  themselves  on  each  side  of  him  for  his  protection.  But  the  clamor 
increased,  the  pressure  became  more  resistless,  and  just  as  they  were  enter- 

*  Michelet,  vol.  i.,  p.  156. 

t  "Properly  speaking  the  Bastille  was  not  taken,  it  surrendered.  Troubled  by  a  bad  con- 
science, it  went  mad,  and  lost  all  presence  of  mind." — MicheJet,  vol.  i.,  p.  156. 


122  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChA?.  XIY. 

ing  the  Place  dc  Grt^ve  the  protectors  of  the  governor  were  overpowered — 
he  was  struck  down,  his  head  severed  by  a  sabre  stroke,  and  raised  a  bloody 
and  ghastly  trophy  into  the  air  upon  a  pike. 

In  the  midst  of  the  great  commotion  two  of  the  Swiss  soldiers  of  the  Bas- 
tille whom  the  populace  supposed  to  have  been  active  in  the  cannonade, 
were  seized,  notwithstanding  the  most  strenuous  efforts  to  save  them,  and 
hunty  to  a  lamp-post.  A  rumor  passed  through  the  crowd  that  a  letter  had 
been  found  from  the  mayor,  Flesselles,  who  was  already  strongly  suspected 
of  treachery,  directed  to  De  Lauuey,  in  which  he  said, 

"  I  am  amusing  the  Parisians  with  cockades  and  promises.  Hold  out  till 
the  evening  and  you  shall  be  relieved."* 

Loud  murmurs  rose  from  the  crowd  which  filled  and  surrounded  the  hall. 
Some  one  proposed  that  Flesselles  should  bo  taken  to  the  Palais  Royal  to  be 
tried  by  the  people.  The  clamor  was  increasing  and  his  peril  imminent. 
Pallid  with  fear  he  descended  from  the  platform,  and,  accompanied  by  a  vast 
throng,  set  out  for  the  Palais  Eoyal.  At  the  turning  of  the  first  street  an 
unknown  man  approached,  and  with  a  pistol  shot  him  dead.  Infuriate 
wretches  immediately  cut  off  his  head,  and  it  was  borne  upon  a  pike  in  sav- 
age triumph  through  the  streets. 

The  French  Guards,  with  the  great  body  of  the  people,  did  what  they  could 
to  repress  these  bloody  acts.  The  French  and  Swiss  soldiers  took  the  oath 
of  fidelity  to  the  nation,  and  under  the  protection  of  the  French  Guard  were 
marched  to  places  of  safety  where  they  were  supplied  with  lodgings  and 
food.  Thus  terminated  this  eventful  day.  The  fall  of  the  Bastille  broke 
the  right  arm  of  the  monarchy,  paralyzed  its  nerves  of  action,  and  struck  it 
a  death  blow.  The  monarch  of  France,  from  his  palace  at  Versailles,  heard 
the  distant  thunders  of  the  cannonade,  and  yet  inscribed  upon  his  puerile 
journal  "  Nothing  /"f 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE   KING  RECOGNIZES  THE  NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY. 

Rout  of  the  Cavalry  of  Lainbesc.  — Tidings  of  the  Capture  of  the  Bastille  reach  Versailles. — 
Consternation  of  the  Court. — Midnight  Interview  between  the  Duke  of  Liancourt  and  the 
King. — New  Delegation  from  the  Assembly. — The  King  visits  the  Assembly. — The  King  es- 
corted back  to  his  Palace. — Fickleness  of  the  Monarch. — Deputation  sent  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville. 
— Address  of  La  Fayette. — La  Fayette  appointed  Commander  of  the  National  Guard. 

"While  these  scenes  were  transpiring  in  Paris,  the  court,  but  poorly  in- 
formed respecting  the  real  attitude  of  affairs,  were  preparing,  on  that  ver\- 
evening,  with  all  the  concentrated  troops  of  the  monarchy,  to  drown  the  in- 
surrection in  Paris  in  blood,  to  disperse  the  Assembly,  consigning  to  the  dun- 
geon and  the  scaffold  its  i)rominent  members,  and  to  rivet  anew  those  shackles 
of  dcsjKjtism  which  for  ages  had  bound  the  people  of  France  hand  and  foot. 

M.  Bcrthier,  one  of  the  high  officers  of  the  crown,  aided  by  his  fltther-in- 
law,  M.  Foulon,  under  minister  of  war,  was  intensely  active  marshaling  the 

•  It  hn«  not  subsequently  appeared  that  there  was  any  conclusive  evidence  of  the  existence  of 
this  letter.  +  W  t'W-  D,-s  Montagnanls,  j.ar  Alphonse  Fxiuiros,  j..  17. 


1789.]  THE  KING  RECOGNIZES  THE  NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY.  123 

troops,  and  giving  orders  for  tlie  attack.  Conscious  of  the  opposition  tbey 
must  encounter,  and  regardless  of  the  carnage  which  would  ensue,  they  had 
planned  a  simultaneous  assault  upon  the  city  at  seven  different  points.  En- 
tertaining no  apprehension  that  the  Bastille  could  be  taken,  or  that  the  pop- 
ulace, however  desperate,  could  present  any  eifectual  resistance  to  the  disci- 
plined troops  of  the  crown,  they  were  elated  with  the  hope  that  the  decisive 
hour  for  the  victory  of  the  court  had  arrived. 

The  queen  could  not  conceal  her  exultation.  "With  the  Duchess  of  Polig- 
nac,  one  of  the  most  haughty  of  the  aristocratic  party,  and  with  others  of  the 
court,  she  went  to  the  Orangery,  where  a  regiment  of  foreign  troops  were 
stationed,  excited  the  enthusiasm  of  the  soldiers  by  her  presence,  and  caused 
wine  and  gold  to  be  freely  distributed  among  them.  In  the  intoxication  of 
the  moment  the  soldiers  sang,  danced,  shouted,  clashed  their  weapons,  and 
swore  eternal  fidelity  to  the  queen.* 

But  these  bright  hopes  were  soon  blighted.  A  cloud  of  dust  was  seen, 
moving  with  the  sweep  of  the  whirlwind  through  the  Avenue  of  Paris.  It 
was  the  cavalry  of  Lambese  flying  before  the  people.  Soon  after  a  messen- 
ger rushed  breathless  into  the  presence  of  the  court,  and  announced  that  the 
Bastille  was  taken,  and  that  the  troops  in  Paris  refused  to  fire  upon  the  peo- 
ple. While  he  was  yet  speaking  another  came  with  the  tidings  that  De 
Launey  and  Flesselles  were  both  slain.  The  queen  was  deeply  affected  and 
wept  bitterly.  " The  idea,"  writes  Madame  Campan,  "that  the  king  had 
lost  such  devoted  subjects  wounded  her  to  the  heart."  The  court  party  was 
now  plunged  into  consternation.  The  truth  flashed  upon  them  that  while 
the  people  were  exasperated  to  the  highest  pitch,  the  troops  could  no  longer 
be  depended  upon  for  the  defense  of  the  court. 

The  masses,  enraged  by  the  insults  and  aggressions  of  the  privileged 
classes,  still  appreciated  the  kindly  nature  of  the  king,  and  spoke  of  him  with 
respect  and  even  affection.  Efforts  were  made  by  the  court  to  conceal  from 
Louis  the  desperate  state  of  affairs,  and  at  his  usual  hour  of  eleven  o'clock 
he  retired  to  his  bed,  by  no  means  conscious  that  the  sceptre  of  power  had 
passed  from  his  hands. 

The  Duke  of  Liancourt,  whose  ofl&ce  as  grand  master  of  the  wardrobe,  al- 
lowed him  to  enter  the  chamber  of  the  king  at  any  hour,  was  a  sincere  friend 
of  Louis.  He  could  not  see  him  rush  thus  blindly  to  destruction,  and,  ac- 
cordingly, entering  his  chamber  and  sitting  down  by  his  bedside,  he  gave 
him  a  truthful  narrative  of  events  in  Paris.  The  king,  astonished  and 
alarmed,  exclaimed,  "  Why,  it  is  a  revolt !"  "  Nay,  sire,"  rephed  Liancourt, 
"  it  is  a  revolution !" 

The  king  immediately  resolved  that  he  would  the  next  morning,  without 
any  ceremony,  visit  the  National  Assembly,  and  attempt  a  reconciliation. 
The  leading  members  of  the  court,  now  fully  conscious  of  their  peril,  were 

*  The  Duchess  of  Polifjnac  was  the  most  intimate  friend  of  the  queen.  Though  enjoying  an 
income  from  the  crown  of  two  himdred  and  ninety  thousand  francs  ($58,400)  annually,  she  was 
deemed,  when  compared  with  others  of  the  nobles,  poor.  The  queen  had  assigned  her  a  mag- 
nificent suite  of  apartments  in  the  Palace  of  Versailles  at  the  head  of  the  marble  stairs.  The 
saloons  of  the  duchess  were  the  rendezvous  of  the  court  in  all  its  plottings  against  the  people. 
Here  originated  that  aristocratic  club  which  called  into  being  antagonistic  popular  clubs  all  over 
the  kingdom. — Madame  Campan,  vol.  i.,  p.  139 ;    Weber,  vol.  ii.,  p.  23. 


124:  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XIV. 

assembled  in  the  saloons  of  the  Duchess  of  Polignac,  some  already  suggested 
flight  from  the  realm  to  implore  the  aid  of  foreign  kings.  The  Assembly 
was  still,  daring  these  midnight  hours,  deliberating  in  great  anxiety.  Many 
of  the  members,  utterly  exhausted  by  their  uninterrupted  service  by  day 
and  by  night,  were  slumbering  upon  the  benches.  It  was  known  by  all  that 
this  was  the  night  assigned  for  the  great  assault ;  and  a  rumor  was  passing 
upon  all  li]>s  that  the  hall  of  the  Assembly  had  been  undermined  that  all  the 
deputies  might  be  blown  into  the  air. 

Paris  at  this  hour  presented  a  scene  of  awful  tumult.  It  was  momentarily 
expected  that  the  royal  troops  would  arrive  with  cavalry  and  artillery,  and 
that  from  the  heights  of  Montmartre  bomb-shells  would  be  rained  down  upon 
the  devoted  cit}'.  Men,  women,  and  children  were  preparing  for  defense. 
The  Bastille  was  guarded  and  garrisoned.  The  pavements  were  torn  up, 
barricades  erected,  and  ditches  dug.  The  windows  were  illuminated  to 
throw  the  light  of  day  into  the  streets.  Paving  stones  and  heavy  articles  of 
furniture  were  conveyed  to  the  roofs  of  the  houses  to  be  thrown  down  upon 
the  assailing  columns.  Every  smith  was  employed  forging  pikes,  and  thou- 
sands of  hands  were  busy  casting  bullets.  Tumultuous  throngs  of  character- 
less and  desperate  men  swept  through  the  streets,  rioting  in  the  general 
anarchy.  The  watch-words  established  by  the  citizen  patrols  were  "  Wash- 
ington and  Liberty."  Thus  passed  the  night  of  the  14th  of  July  in  the  Cha- 
teau of  Versailles,  in  the  hall  of  the  Assembly,  and  in  the  streets  of  Paris. 

At  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the  15th  the  Assembly  ceased  its  delib- 
erations for  a  few  hours,  and  the  members,  though  the  session  was  still  contin- 
ued, sought  such  repose  as  they  could  obtain  in  their  seats.  At  eight  o'clock 
the  discussions  were  resumed.  It  was  resolved  to  send  a  deputation  of  twen- 
ty-four members,  again  to  implore  the  king  to  respect  the  rights  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  no  longer  to  suffer  them  to  be  goaded  to  madness  by  insults  and 
oppression.  As  the  deputation  ■was  about  to  leave,  Mirabeau  rose  and  said, 
"  Tell  the  king  that  the  foreign  hordes  surrounding  us  received  yesterda}' 
the  caresses,  encouragement,  and  bribes  of  the  court ;  that  all  night  long  these 
foreign  satellites,  gorged  with  money  and  wine,  in  their  impious  songs  have 
predicted  the  enslavement  of  France,  and  have  invoked  the  destruction  of 
the  National  Assembly ;  tell  him  that  in  his  very  palace  the  courtiers  have 
mingled  dancing  with  these  impious  songs,  and  that  such  was  the  prelude  to 
the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew." 

He  had  hardly  uttered  these  words  ere  the  Duke  of  Liancourt  entered  and 
announced  that  the  king  was  coming  in  person  to  visit  the  Assembly.  The 
doors  were  thrown  open,  and,  to  the  Jistonishment  of  the  Assembly,  the  king, 
without  guard  or  escort  and  accom])anied  only  by  his  two  brothers,  entered. 
A  shout  of  a})plause  greeted  him.  In  a  short  and  touching  speech  the  king 
won  t(j  himself  the  hearts  of  all.  He  assured  them  of  his  confidence  in  the 
As.sembly  ;  tliat  he  had  never  contemi)lated  its  violent  dissolution ;  and  that 
he  sincerely  desired  to  unite  with  the  Assembly  in  consulting  for  the  best  in- 
terests of  the  nation.  I  le  also  declared  that  he  had  issued  orders  for  the  with- 
drawal of  the  troops  both  from  Paris  and  Versailles,  ^and  that,  hereafter,  the 
counsels  of  the  National  Assembly  should  be  the  guide  of  his  administration.* 

•  Hist.  I'liil.  do  In  Rev.  Fr.,  jmr  Ant.  Fniitin  Dosodonrds,  vol.  i.,  p.  \C,r>;  M.  Rubaud  de  St. 
ICtieiim-,  vol.  i.,  j..  C'.l ;    Hist,  rarloni.,  vol.  ii.,  j..  117. 


1789.]  THE  KING  KECOGNIZES  THE  NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY.  125 

This  conciliatory  speech  was  received  by  the  mass  of  the  deputies  with 
ra^jturous  applause.  The  aristocratic  party  were,  however,  greatly  chagrined, 
and,  retiring  by  themselves,  with  whispers  and  frowns  gave  vent  to  their  vex- 
ation ;  but  the  general  applause  drowned  the  feeble  murmurs  of  the  nobles. 
Nearly  the  whole  Assembly  rose  in  honor  of  the  king  as  he  left,  and,  sur- 
rounding him  in  tumultuous  joy,  they  escorted  him  back  to  his  palace.  A 
vast  crowd  from  Paris  and  Versailles  thronged  the  streets,  filhng  the  air  with 
their  loyal  and  congratulatory  shouts.  The  queen,  who  was  sitting  anxiously 
in  her  boudoir,  heard  the  uproar  and  was  greatly  terrified.  Soon  it  was  an- 
nounced to  her  that  the  king  was  returning  in  triumph :  she  stepped  out  upon 
a  balcony  and  looked  down  upon  the  broad  avenue  filled  with  a  countless 
multitude.  The  king  was  on  foot ;  the  deputies  encircled  him,  interlacing 
their  arms  to  protect  him  from  the  crowd,  which  was  surging  tumultuously 
around  with  every  manifestation  of  attachment  and  joy. 

The  people  really  loved  the  kind-hearted  king ;  but  they  already  under- 
stood that  foible  in  his  character  which  eventually  led  to  his  ruin.  A  wom- 
an of  Versailles  pressed  her  way  through  the  deputies  to  the  king  and,  with 
great  simplicity,  said, 

"  Oh,  my  king  !  are  you  quite  sincere?  Will  they  not  make  you  change 
your  mind  again?" 

"  ISTo,"  replied  the  king,  "  I  will  never  change." 

The  feeble  Louis  did  not  know  himself  He  was  then  sincere ;  but  in  less 
than  an  hour  he  was  again  wavering,  being  undecided  whether  to  carry  out 
his  pacific  policy  of  respecting  the  just  demands  of  the  people,  or  to  fly  from 
the  realm,  and  invoke  the  aid  of  foreign  despots,  to  quench  the  rising  flame 
of  liberty  in  blood.  It  was  well  known  that  the  queen,  the  brothers  of  the 
king,  and  the  Polignacs,  were  the  implacable  foes  of  reform,  and  that  it  was 
through  their  councils  that  the  Assembly  and  the  nation  were  menaced  with 
violence.* 

As  soon  as  the  queen  was  seen  upon  the  balcony,  with  her  son  and  daugh- 
ter by  her  side,  the  shouts  of  applause  were  redoubled.  But  now  murmurs 
began  to  mingle  with  the  acclaim.  A  few  execrations  were  heard  against 
the  obnoxious  members  of  the  court.  Still  the  general  voice  was  enthusi- 
astic in  loyalty ;  and  when  the  queen  descended  to  the  foot  of  the  marble 
stairs  and  threw  herself  into  the  arms  of  the  king,  every  murmur  was  hushed, 
and  confidence  and  happiness  seemed  to  fill  all  hearts.f 

A  cabinet  council  was  immediately  held  in  the  palace  to  deliberate  respect- 
ing the  next  step  to  be  taken.  The  Assembly  returned  to  their  hall  and 
immediately  chose  a  deputation  of  one  hundred  members,  with  La  Fayette 
at  their  head,  to  convey  to  the  municipal  government  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville 
in  Paris  the  joyful  tidings  of  their  reconciliation  with  the  king.  A  courier 
was  sent  in  advance  to  inform  of  the  approach  of  the  delegation. 

It  was  now  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.     The  deputation  left  Versailles 

*  Necker,  speaking  of  the  plots  of  the  court,  writes,  "I  could  never  ascertain  certainly  what 
design  was  contemplated.  There  were  secrets  and  after-secrets,  and  I  am  convinced  that  the 
king  himself  was  not  in  all  of  them.  It  was  intended,  perhaps,  according  to  circumstances,  to 
draw  the  monarch  into  measures  which  they  did  not  dare  to  mention  to  him  beforehand." — Vol. 
ii.,  p.  85.  t  Madame  Campan's  Memoirs  of  Marie  Antoinette,  vol.  ii.,  p.  48. 


126  THE  FREN'Cn  REVOLUTION.  [ClIAP.  XIV. 

accompanied  by  an  immense  escort  of  citizen-soldiers,  and  followed  by  a 
crowd  which  could  not  be  numbered.  They  were  received  in  Paris  with 
almost  delirious  enthusiasm.  Throughout  the  whole  night  the  citizens,  men, 
women,  and  children,  had  been  at  work  piling  up  barricades,  tearing  up  the 
pavements,  and  preparing  with  every  conceivable  weapon  and  measure  of 
offense  and  defense  to  meet  the  contemplated  attack  from  the  artillery  and 
cavalry  of  the  crown.  Fathers  and  mothers,  pallid  with  terror,  had  antici- 
pated the  awful  scenes  of  the  sack  of  the  city  by  a  brutal  soldiery.  Inex- 
pressible was  the  joy  to  which  they  surrendered  themselves  in  finding  that 
the  king  now  openly  avowed  himself  their  friend  and  espoused  the  popular 
cause.  Windows  and  balconies  were  crowded,  the  streets  were  strewn  with 
flowers,  and  the  deputies  were  greeted  with  waving  of  handkerchiefs  and 
cheers. 

At  the  Place  Louis  XV.  the  deputies  left  their  carriages  an^  were  con- 
ducted through  the  garden  of  the  Tuileries,  greeted  by  the  music  of  martial 
bands,  to  the  vestibule  of  the  palace.  There  they  were  met  by  a  committee 
of  the  municipality,  with  one  of  the  clergy,  the  Abbe  Fauchet,  at  its  head, 
who  accompanied  them  to  the  Hotel  de  Yille. 

La  Fayette  addressed  the  electors,  informing  them  of  the  king's  speech, 
and  describing  the  monarch's  return  to  his  palace  in  the  midst  of  the  Na- 
tional Assembly  and  of  the  people  of  Versailles,  "  protected  by  their  love 
and  their  inviolable  fidelity."  Lally  ToUendal,  who  was  remarkable  for  his 
eloquence,  then  addressed  the  electors  and  the  assembled  multitude.  He 
spoke  9f  the  king,  whom  he  loved,  in  the  highest  terms  of  eulogy,  and  in  a 
strain  so  persuasive  and  spirit-stirring  that  he  was  immediately  crowned  with 
a  wreath  of  flowers,  and,  in  a  tumult  of  transport,  was  carried  in  triumph  to 
the  window  to  receive  the  applause  of  the  thousands  who  filled  the  streets. 
Love  for  the  king  seemed  to  be  an  instinct  with  the  populace.  Shouts  of 
,'  Vive  le  Roi !"  rose  from  the  vast  assembly,  which  were  reverberated  from 
street  to  street  through  all  the  thronged  thoroughflires  of  the  metropolis. 

The  king  had  authorized  the  establishment  of  the  National  Guard,  but 
the  guard  was  yet  without  a  commander-in-chief  The  government  of 
Paris  also,  by  the  death  of  Flesselles,  had  no  head.  There  was  in  the  hall 
of  the  Assembly  a  bust  of  La  Fayette  which  had  been  presented  by  the 
United  States  to  the  city  of  Paris.  It  stood  by  the  side  of  the  bust  of  "U^ash- 
ington.  As  the  momentous  question  was  discussed,  who  should  be  intrust- 
ed with  the  command  of  the  National  Guard,  a  body  which  now  numbered 
hundreds  of  thousands  and  was  sjircad  all  over  the  kingdom,  Moreau  de  St. 
M6ry,  Chairman  of  the  Municijiality,  rose,  and,  without  uttering  a  word,  si- 
lently pointed  to  the  bust  of  La  Fayette.  The  gesture  was  decisive.  A 
general  shout  of  acclaim  filled  the  room.  He  who  had  fought  the  battles  of 
liberty  in  America  was  thus  intrusted  with  the  command  of  the  citizen-sol- 
diery of  France.  M.  Bailly  was  then  chosen  successor  of  Flesselles,  not  with 
the  title  of  Prevot  dcs  Marchands,  but  with  the  more  comprehensive  one  of 
Mayor  of  Paris. 

On  the  27th  of  SeptoinbcT  the  banners  of  the  National  Guard,  each  one 
of  which  had  been  ])n'viously  consecrated  in  the  church  of  its  district,  were 
all  taken  to  the  Cathedral  of  Notre  Dame,  and  there,  with  the  utmost  pomp 


1789.] 


THE  KING  VISITS  PAKIS. 


127 


of  civil,  military,  and  religious  ceremonies,  were  consecrated  to  the  service 
of  God  and  the  nation. 


M 


,1      t!  -  )  I  ( 


I,    M      I'M'lij     V* 


L.LE8BINQ   TUB   ]!AN^ 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THE   KING  VISITS   PARIS. 

Views  of  the  Patriots. — Pardon  of  the  French  Guards. — Keligious  Ceremonies. — Recall  of 
Necker.— The  King  visits  Paris.— Action  of  the  Clergy.— The  King  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville.— 
Return  of  the  King  to  Versailles. — Count  d'Artois,  the  Polignacs,  and  others  leave  France. — 
Insolence  of  the  Servants. — Sufferings  of  the  People. — Persecution  of  the  Corn-dealers. — 
Berthier  of  Toulon. — M.  Foulon. — Their  Assassination. —  Humane  Attempts  of  Necker. — 
Abolition  of  Feudal  Rights. 

The  new  government  was  now  established,  consolidated  with  power  which 
neither  the  court  nor  the  people  as  yet  even  faintly  realized.  The  National 
Assembly  and  the  municipality  of  Paris  were  now  supreme.  A  million  of 
men  were  ready  to  draw  the  sword  and  spring  into  the  ranks  to  enforce 
their  decrees.  The  king  was  henceforth  "Sut  a  constitutional  monarch; 
though  by  no  means  conscious  of  it,  his  despotic  power  had  passed  away, 
never  to  be  regained.  The  Revolution  had  now  made  such  strides  that 
nothing  remained  but  to  carry  out  those  plans  which  might  be  deemed  es- 
sential for  the  welfare  of  France.  The  Revolution  thus  far  had  been  al- 
most bloodless.     And  had  it  not  been  for  the  interference  of  surrounding 


128  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XV. 

despots,  who  combined  their  armies  to  rivet  anew  the  chains  of  feudal  aris- 
tocracy upon  the  French  i)eople,  the  subsequent  horrors  of  the  Revolution, 
in  all  probability,  never  would  have  occurred.  Men  of  wisdom  and  of  the 
purest  patriotism  were  at  the  head  of  these  popular  movements.  Every 
step  which  had  been  taken  had  been  wisely  taken.  The  object  which  all 
souf'ht  was  reform,  not  revolution — the  reign  of  a  constitutional  monarchy, 
like  that  of  England,  not  the  reign  of  terror. 

A  republic  was  not  then  even  thought  of  A  monarchy  was  in  accord- 
ance with  the  habits  and  tiistes  of  the  people,  and  would  leave  them  still  in 
sympathy  with  the  great  family  of  governments  which  surrounded  them. 
La  Fayette,  Talleyrand,  Si6yes,  Mirabeau,  Bailly,  and  all  the  other  leaders 
in  this  great  movement,  wished  only  to  infuse  the  spirit  of  personal  liberty 
into  the  monarchy  of  France. 

But  when  all  the  surrounding  despotisms  combined  and  put  their  armies 
in  motion  to  invade  France,  determined  that  the  French  people  should  not 
be  free,  and  when  the  aristocracy  of  France  combined  with  these  foreign 
invaders  to  enslave  anew  these  millions  who  had  just  broken  their  chains,  a 
spirit  of  desperation  was  roused  which  led  to  all  the  woes  which  ensued. 
We  can  not  tell  what  would  have  been  the  result  had  there  not  been  the 
combination  of  these  foreign  kings,  but  we  do  know  that  the  results  which 
did  ensue  were  the  direct  and  legitimate  consequence  of  that  combination. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  French  Guards,  espousing  the  popular 
side,  had  refused  to  fire  upon  the  people.  This  disobedience  to  the  royal 
officers  was,  of  course,  an  act  of  treason.  The  Duke  of  Liancourt,  speaking 
in  behalf  of  the  king,  said,  "  The  king  pardons  the  French  Guards."  At 
the  utterance  of  the  obnoxious  word  pardon,  a  murmur  of  displeasure  ran 
through  the  hall.  Some  of  the  guards  who  were  present  immediately  ad- 
vanced to  the  platform,  and  one,  as  the  organ  of  the  rest,  said,  finnly  and 
nobly, 

"  We  can  not  accept  a  pardon.  We  need  none.  In  serving  the  nation  we 
serve  the  king ;  and  the  scenes  now  transpiring  prove  it." 

The  laconic  speech  was  greeted  with  thunders  of  applause,  and  nothing 
more  was  said  about  a  pardon.  The  lower  clergy,  who  were  active  in  these 
movements,  were  not  unmindful  of  their  obligations  to  God.  The  whole 
people  seemed  to  sympathize  in  this  religious  sentiment.  At  the  suggestion 
of  the  Archbishop  of  Paris  a  Te  Deum  was  promptly  voted,  and  the  elect- 
ors, deputies,  and  new  magistrates,  accompanied  by  an  immense  concourse 
of  citizens,  and  escorted  by  the  French  Guards,  repaired  to  the  Cathedral 
of  Notre  Dame,  where  the  solemn  chant  of  thanksgiving  was  devoutly  of- 
fered.    La  Fayette  and  Bailly  then  took  the  oath  of  office. 

Upon  the  return  of  the  de])utation  to  the  Assembly  at  Versailles,  Lally 
TolU'iidal  n'i)ort('(l  that  the  universal  cry  of  the  Parisians  was  for  the  recall 
of  Necker,  with  which  minister  the  popular  cause  was  held  to  be  identified. 
A  motion  was  immediately  introduced  to  send  a  deputation  to  the  king  so- 
liciting his  recall.  They  had  but  just  entered  upon  the  discussion  of  this 
(picsticm  when  a  message  was  received  from  Louis  announcing  the  dismissal 
of  the  obnoxious  ministers,  accompanied  by  an  unsealed  letter  addressed  to 
Necker,  summoning  him  to  return  to  his  post.     Inspired  by  gratitude  for 


1789.]  THE  KING  VISITS  PARIS.  129 

this  act,  the  Assemblj  immediately  addressed  a  vote  of  thanks  to  the 
king. 

The  populace  of  Paris  had  expressed  the  earnest  wish  that  the  king 
would  pay  them  a  visit.  During  the  afternoon  and  evening  of  the  16th, 
the  question  was  earnestly  discussed  by  the  court  at  Versailles,  whether  the 
king  should  fly  from  the  kingdom,  protected  by  the  foreign  troops  whom 
he  could  gather  around  him,  and  seek  the  assistance  of  foreign  powers,  or 
whether  he  should  continue  to  express  acquiescence  in  the  popular  move- 
ment and  visit  the  people  in  Paris.  The  queen  was  in  favor  of  escape.  She 
told  Madame  Campan  that,  after  a  long  discussion  at  which  she  was  present, 
the  king,  impatient  and  weary,  said,  "Well,  gentlemen,  we  must  decide. 
Must  I  go  away,  or  stay?  I  am  ready  to  do  either."  " The  majority,"  the 
queen  continued,  "  were  for  the  king's  stay.  Time  will  show  whether  the 
right  choice  has  been  made."* 

The  king  was  very  apprehensive  that  in  going  powerless  to  Paris  he 
might  be  assassinated.  In  preparation  of  the  event,  he  partook  of  the  sa- 
crament of  the  Lord's  Supper,  and  nominated  his  brother,  subsequently 
Louis  XVIIL,  Lieutenant  of  France,  in  case  of  his  detention  or  death.  Ear- 
ly the  next  morning,  the  17th  of  July,  he  took  an  affecting  leave  of  his 
weeping,  distracted  family,  to  visit  the  tumultuous  metropolis.  His  pale 
and  melancholy  countenance  impressed  every  observer.  The  queen,  who 
was  bitterly  hostile  to  the  movement,  was  almost  in  despair.  She  immedi- 
ately retired  to  her  chamber,  and  employed  herself  in  writing  an  address  to 
the  Assembly,  which  she  determined  to  present  in  person  in  case  the  king 
should  b6  detained  a  prisoner.f 

It  was  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  when  the  king  left  Yersailles.  He  rode 
in  an  unostentatious  carriage,  without  any  guards,  but  surrounded  by  the 
whole  body  Of  the  deputies  on  foot.:}: 

It  was  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  before  the  long  procession  arrived  at 
the  gates  of  the  city.  Thus  far  they  had  proceeded  in  silence.  M.  Bailly, 
the  newly-appointed  mayor,  then  met  him  and  presented  him  with  the  keys 
of  the  city,  saying  "  These  are  the  keys  presented  to  Henry  the  Fourth.  He 
had  reconquered  his  people.     Now  the  people  have  reconquered  their  king." 

Two  hundred  thousand  men,  now  composing  the  National  Guard,  were 
marshaled  in  military  array  to  receive  their  monarch.  They  lined  the  av- 
enue four  or  five  men  deep  from  the  bridge  of  Sevres  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville. 
They  had  but  30,000  muskets  and  50,000  pikes.  The  rest  were  armed  with 
sabres,  lances,  scythes,  and  pitchforks.     The  Eevolution  thus  far  was  the 

*  Madame  Campan,  Memoirs,  p.  251. 

t  "  She  got  this  addi-ess  by  heart,"  writes  Madame  Campan.  "  I  remember  it  began  with 
these  words,  '  Gentlemen,  I  come  to  place  in  your  hands  the  wife  and  family  of  your  sovereign. 
Do  not  suffer  those  who  have  been  united  in  Heaven  to  be  put  asunder  on  earth.'  "While  she 
was  repeating  this  address  her  voice  was  often  interrupted  by  her  tears,  and  by  the  sorrowful  ex- 
clamation, '  They  will  never  let  him  return.'  " 

t  The  Parliamentary  History,  vol.  ii.,  p.  130,  records  that  100  deputies  accompanied  the  king; 
Thiers  states  200 ;  Louis  Blanc,  240 ;  Michelet,  300  or  400.  M.  Rabaud  de  St.  Etienne,  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Assembly,  says  that  the  whole  body  of  the  deputies  accompanied  the  king ;  and  M. 
Ant.  Fantin  Desodoards,  an  eye-witness,  writes,  "L'Assemblee  National,  entiere  I'accompagnait 
a  pied  dans  son  costume  de  ceremonie,"  vol.  i.,  p.  34.  The  probability  is  that  100  were  chosen^ 
but  all  went. 

I 


130  THE  FKENCII  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XV. 

movement,  not  of  a  party,  but  of  the  nation.  Even  matrons  and  young 
girls  were  seen  standing  armed  by  the  side  of  their  husbands  and  fathers. 
The  clergy,  lower  clergy,  and  some  of  the  bishops,  not  forgetting  that  they 
were  men  and  citizens,  were  there  also  in  this  hour  of  their  countr3''s  peril, 
consecrating  all  their  influence  to  the  cause  of  freedom.  They  did  not  iu- 
gloriously  take  refuge  beneath  their  clerical  robes  from  the  responsibihties 
of  this  greatest  of  conflicts  for  human  rights.  Shouts  were  continually  heard 
swelling  from  the  multitude  of  "  Vive  la  Nation !"  As  yet  not  a  voice  had 
been  heard  exclaiming  "Vive  le  Koi!"  The  people  had  again  become  sus- 
picious. Rumors  of  the  unrelenting  hostility  of  the  court  had  been  circu- 
lating through  the  crowd,  and  there  were  many  fears  that  the  ever-vacillat- 
ing king  would  again  espouse  the  cause  of  aristocratic  usurj^ation.  Passing 
through  these  lines  of  the  National  Guard,  with  the  whole  population  of 
Paris  thronging  the  house-tops,  the  balconies,  and  the  pavements,  the  king 
at  length  arrived,  at  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  the 
seat  of  the  new  government.  He  alighted  from  his  carriage  and  ascended 
the  stairs  beneath  a  canopy  of  steel  formed  by  the  grenadiers  crossing  their 
bayonets  over  his  head.  This  was  intended  not  as  a  humiliation,  but  as  a 
singular  act  of  honor.* 

The  king  took  his  position  in  the  centre  of  the  spacious  hall,  which  pre- 
sented an  extraordinary  aspect.  It  was  crowded  with  the  notabilities  of  the 
city  and  of  the  realm,  and  those  near  the  centre  with  true  French  polite- 
ness dropped  upon  their  knees,  that  those  more  remote  might  have  a  view 
of  the  king.  Bailly  then  presented  the  king  with  the  tri-colored  cockade. 
He  received  it,  and  immediately  pinned  it  upon  his  hat.  This  was  the 
adoption  of  the  popular  cause.  It  was  received  with  a  shout  of  enthusiasm, 
and  "  Vive  le  Roi !"  burst  from  all  lips  with  almost  delirious  energy.  Tears 
gushed  into  the  eyes  of  the  king,  and,  turning  to  one  of  his  suite,  M.  de  Cu- 
bieres,  he  said,  "  My  heart  stands  in  need  of  such  shouts  from  the  people." 

'"Sire^"  replied  Cubieres,  "the  people  love  your  majesty,  and  your  majes- 
ty ought  never  to  have  doubted  it." 

The  king  rejoined,  in  accents  of  deep  sensibility,  "  The  French  loved 
Henry  the  Fourth ;  and  what  king  ever  better  deserved  to  be  beloved  ?" 

The  king  could  not  forget  that  the  affection  of  the  people  did  not  protect 
Henry  from  the  dagger  of  the  assassin.  Moreau  de  St.  Mt^rrv,  president  of 
the  Assembly  of  Electors,  in  his  address  to  the  king,  said,  "You  owed 
your  crown  to  birth ;  you  are  now  indebted  for  it  only  to  your  virtues."f 
The  mmutes  of  the  proceedings  of  the  municipality  were  then  read,  and  the 
king,  by  silence,  gave  his  assent  to  the  appointment  of  La  Fayette  as  Com- 
mander of  the  National  Guard,  of  Bailly  as  Mayor  of  Paris,  and  to  the  order 
for  the  utter  demolition  of  the  Bastille.  It  was  also  proposed  that  a  monu- 
ment should  be  erected  upon  its  site  to  Louis  XVI.,  "  the  Regenerator  of 
public  liberty,  the  Restorer  of  national  prosperity,  the  Fatlier  of  the  French 
people."  These  were,  to  the  monarch,  hours  of  terrifie  humiliation.  He  bore 
them,  however,  with  the  spirit  of  a  martyr,  struggUng  in  vain  to  assume  the 
aspect  of  confidence  and  cordiality. 

♦  Michclet,  vol.  i.,  j).  173. 

t  Ilistoirc  dc  la  liuvolutiou  Frau^aisc,  inir  Louis  Blanc,  vol.  ii.,  p.  420. 


1789.]  THE  KING  VISITS  PARIS. 


131 


AKErVAL  OF  THE  KING   AT  THE   HOTEL   DE  VILLE,   JULY   17,    17S9. 

When  Bailly  led  him  to  the  balcony,  to  exhibit  him  to  the  people  with  the 
tri-colored  cockade  upon  his  hat,  and  shouts  of  triumph,  like  thunder-peals, 
rose  from  the  myriad  throng,  tears  flooded  the  eyes  of  the  king,  and  he 
bowed  his  head  in  silence  and  sadness,  as  if  presenting  himself  a  victim  for 
the  sacrifice.  Some  one  whispered  to  the  monarch  that  it  was  expected  that 
he  would  make  an  address.  Two  or  three  times  he  attempted  it,  but  his 
voice  was  choked  with  emotion,  and  he  could  only,  in  almost  inarticulate 
accents,  exclaim,  "You  may  always  rely  upon  my  affection !" 

As  the  king  returned  through  the  vast  throng  to  Versailles,  the  tide  of 
enthusiasm  set  strongly  in  his  favor.  Shouts  of  "  Vive  le  Eoi !"  almost  deaf- 
ened his  ears.  The  populace  bore  him  in  their  arms  to  his  chariot.  A 
woman  threw  herself  upon  his  neck  and  wept  with  joy.  Men  ran  from  the 
houses  with  goblets  of  wine  for  his  postillions  and  his  suite.  A  few  words 
from  his  lips  then  would  have  re-echoed  through  the  crowd,  and  might  have 
saved  the  monarchy.  But  Louis  was  a  man  of  feeble  intellect,  and  of  no 
tact  whatever.  He  was  pleased  with  the  homage  which  was  spontaneously 
offered  him,  and,  stolid  in  his  immense  corpulence,  sat  lolling  in  his  chariot, 


132  THE  FRENCH  KEVOLUTION.  [ClIAP.  XV. 

with  a  good-natured  smile  upon  his  face,  but  uttered  not  a  word.  It  vfas 
after  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening  when  he  returned  to  the  palace  at  Ver- 
sailles. The  queen  and  her  children  met  hun  on  the  stairs,  and,  convul- 
sively weeping,  threw  themselves  into  his  arms.  Clinging  together,  they 
ascended  to  the  saloon.  There  the  queen  caught  sight  of  the  tri-colored 
cockade,  which  the  king  had  forgotten  to  remove  from  his  hat.  The  queen 
recoiled,  and  looking  upon  it  contemptuously,  exclaimed,  "  I  did  not  think 
that  I  had  married  a  plebeian."  The  good-natured  king,  however,  forgot  all 
his  humiliations  in  his  safe  return,  and  congratulated  himself  that  no  vio- 
lence had  been  excited. 

"Happily,"  he  said,  "no  blood  has  been  shed;  and  it  is  my  firm  de- 
termination that  never  shall  a  drop  of  French  blood  be  spilled  by  my  or- 
der."* 

While  these  scenes  were  transpiring  on  this  the  17th  of  July,  the  Count 
d'Artois,  second  brother  of  the  king,  the  Condds,  the  Polignacs,  and  most  of 
the  other  leaders  of  the  aristocratic  party  fled  from  France.  The  conspiracy 
they  had  formed  had  failed,  the  nation  had  risen  against  them,  and  no  reli- 
ance could  be  placed  on  the  vacillating  king.  Their  only  hope  now  was  to 
summon  the  combined  energies  of  foreign  despotisms  to  arrest  the  progress 
of  that  liberty  in  France  which  alike  threatened  all  their  thrones.  The  pal- 
ace was  now  forsaken  and  gloomy  as  a  tomb.  For  three  days  the  king  sadly 
paced  the  deserted  halls,  with  none  of  his  old  friends  to  cheer  or  counsel  him 
but  Bensenval  and  Montmorin.  His  servants,  conscious  that  he  had  fallen 
from  his  kingly  power,  became  careless  even  to  insolence.  Even  the  French 
Guard  mounted  guard  at  Versailles  only  on  orders  received  from  the  Elect- 
ors at  Paris.f 

On  the  19th  Bensenval  presented  an  order  for  the  king  to  sign.  A  foot- 
man entered  the  cabinet,  and  looked  over  the  king's  shoulder  to  see  what  he 
was  writing.  Louis,  amazed  at  such  unparalleled  effrontery,  seized  the  tongs 
to  break  the  head  of  the  miscreant.  Bensenval  inter|DOsed  to  prevent  the 
undignified  blow.  The  king  clasped  the  hand  of  his  friend,  and,  bursting 
into  tears,  thanked  him  for  the  interposition.  Thus  low  had  fallen  the  de- 
scendant of  Louis  XIV.  in  his  own  palace  at  Versailles.:}: 

There  was  now,  in  reality,  no  government  in  France.  The  kingly  power 
was  entirely  overthrown,  and  the  National  Assembly  had  hardly  awoke  to 
the  consciousness  that  all  power  had  passed  into  its  hands.  Even  in  Paris, 
the  municipality,  now  supreme  there,  had  by  no  means  organized  an  efiicient 
government.  Famine  desolated  the  kingdom.  Ages  of  misrule  had  so  ut- 
t<?rly  impoverished  the  people  that  they  were  actually  dying  of  starvation. 
"  Bread !  bread !"  was  every  where  the  cry,  but  bread  could  not  be  obtained. 
Many  boiled  grass  and  fern-roots  for  sustenance.  Every  where  the  eye  met 
wan  and  haggard  men  in  a  state  of  desperation.  The  king,  constitutionally 
humane,  felt  deeply  these  woes  of  his  subjects.  With  a  little  a]iparent  os- 
tentation, quite  pardonable  under  the  circumstances,  he  occasionally  walked 
out  and  administered  relief  with  his  own  hands  to  the  haggard  beggary  he 
every  where  met.  He  was  by  nature  one  of  the  kindest  of  men,  but  he  had 
hardly  a  single  quality  to  fit  him  to  be  the  ruler  of  a  great  peo])lo.    A  nation 

*  Madamo  Campan,  Memoirs,  etc.,  ii.,  59.  t  Michelct,  186.  J  Michclet,  176. 


1789.]  THE  KING  VISITS  PARIS. 

was  on  the  brink  of  famine,  and  the  monarch,  was  giving  gold  to 
stead  of  introducing  vigorous  measures  for  relief. 


133 


mrs  m- 


vrlr 


''''im\l  nr'  V      t  ,',l!''/.,i    "^ 


L0UI8   XVI.  GIYING  MONET  TO  THE   POOR. 


As  the  National  Assembly  met  on  the  morning  of  the  18th  of  July,  reports' 
were  brought  from  all  parts  of  violence  and  riots.  The  most  vigorous  efforts 
were  adopted  by  the  Electors  in  Paris  to  supply  the  city  with  food.  Nearly 
a  million  of  people  were  within  its  walls.  Vast  numbers  had  crowded  into 
the  city  from  the  country,  hoping  to  obtain  food.  No  law  could  restrain  such 
multitudes  of  men,  actually  dying  of  hunger.  As  it  was  better  to  die  by  the 
bullet  or  the  bayonet  than  by  starvation,  they  would,  at  all  hazards,  break 


134  THE  FRENCH  KEVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XV. 

into  the  dwellings  of  the  wealthy,  and  into  magazines,  to  obtain  food,  unless 
food  in  some  other  way  could  be  provided  for  them.  The  disorders  of  the 
times  had  put  a  stop  to  all  the  enterprises  of  industry,  and  thus  the  impoverish- 
ed millions  were  left  without  money,  without  employment,  and  without  food. 
In  one  of  the  villages  near  Paris  it  was  reported  that  a  rich  farmer  had 
concealed  a  large  quantity  of  grain,  to  enrich  himself  by  its  sale  at  an  exor- 
bitant price.  A  haggard  multitude  of  men,  women,  and  children  surround- 
ed his  dwelling,  and  threatened  to  hang  the  farmer  unless  he  delivered  up 
his  stores.  The  Assembly  hastily  sent  a  deputation  of  twelve  members  to 
attempt  to  save  the  unfortunate  corn-dealer's  life.*  "While  engaged  in  this 
business,  a  delegation  entered  from  the  Faubourg  San  Antoine,  stating  that 
the  wretched  inhabitants  of  that  faubourg  had  for  the  last  five  days  been 
without  work  and  without  bread,  and  entreating  that  some  measure  might 
be  devised  to  save  them  from  starvation.  Nine  thousand  dollars  were  im- 
mediately subscribed  by  the  deputies  for  their  relief.  Four  thousand  of  this 
sum  were  given  by  the  Archbishop  of  Paris. 


UTION   OF  TUB  OOBN-DEALEBtk 


The  rage  of  the  people,  during  these  days  of  distress,  was  particularly  di- 
rected against  those  whom  they  deemed  monopolists,  who  were  accused  of 
keeping  from  the  market  the  very  sources  of  life.    The  sufferings  of  the  pco- 

*  "  lie  wns  Bftvod  only  by  a  dcjuitntion  of  the  AssomMy,  who  showeil  themselves  ndmiriiM  '  for 
ronrnRc  nnd  humanity,  risked  tlieir  lives,  nnd  iireserved"  tlie  uuui  only  iifior  having  begped  liim 
i)f  the  i»eoj)Ic  on  their  knees." — Michciit,  p.  18G. 


1789.]  THE  KING  VISITS  PARIS.  135 

pie  and  their  desperation  were  so  intense  that  it  was  necessary  to  send  mili- 
tary bands  from  the  city  of  Paris  to  convoy  provisions  through  the  famish- 
ing districts.  The  peasants,  who  saw  their  children  actually  gasping  and  dy- 
ing of  hunger,  would  attack  the  convoys  with  the  ferocity  of  wolves,  and, 
though  it  seemed  absolutely  necessary  to  resist  them  even  unto  death,  no  one 
could  severely  blame  them. 

There  were  two  men,  M.  Foulon  and  M.  Berthier,  who  were  conspicuous 
members  of  the  court,  and  who  had  both  been  very  active  in  their  hostility 
to  the  popular  cause.  Upon  the  overthrow  of  the  Necker  ministry,  these 
men  were  called  into  the  new  ministry,  antagonistic  to  the  people.  It  was 
reported  that  M.  Foulon,  who  was  the  father-in-law  of  M.  Berthier,  had  fre- 
quently said,  ^ '■If  the peojjle  are  hungry,  let  them  eat  grass.  It  is  good  enough 
for  them  ;  my  horses  eat  it."*  He  is  also  stated  to  have  uttered  the  terrible 
threat,  "  France  must  be  mowed  as  we  mow  a  meadow."  He  was  reputed  to 
be  a  man  of  great  wealth,  and  had  long  been  execrated  by  the  people.  These 
brutal  remarks,  which  have  never  been  proved  against  him,  but  which  were 
universally  believed,  and  which  were  in  entire  harmony  with  his  established 
character,  excited  the  wrath  of  the  people  to  the  highest  pitch.f 

Berthier,  his  son-in-law,  even  the  Eoyalists  confess  to  have  been  a  very 
hard-hearted  man,  unscrupulous  and  grasj)ing.:{:  Though  fifty  years  of  age 
he  was  an  atrocious  libertine,  and  seemed  to  exult  in  the  opportunity  of 
making  war  upon  the  Parisians,  by  whom  he  was  detested.  He  showed  "  a 
diabolical  activity,"  says  Michelet,  "  in  collecting  arms,  troops,  every  thing 
together,  and  in  manufacturing  cartridges.  If  Paris  was  not  laid  waste  with 
fire  and  sword  it  was  not  his  fault." § 

Both  Berthier  and  Foulon  were  now  at  the  mercy  of  the  people.  Neither 
the  court  nor  the  royal  army  had  any  power  to  protect  them,  and  murmurs 
loud  and  deep  fell  upon  their  ears.  Berthier  attempted  to  escape  from 
France  to  join  the  Eoyalists  who  had  already  emigrated.  Fleeing  by  night 
and  hiding  by  day,  in  four  nights  he  reached  as  far  as  Soissons.  Foulon 
adopted  the  stratagem  of  a  pretended  death.  He  spread  the  report  that  he 
had  died  suddenly  of  apoplexy.  He  was  buried  by  proxy  with  great  pomp, 
one  of  his  servants  having  by  chance  died  at  the  right  moment.  He  then 
repaired  to  the  house  of  a  friend,  where  he  concealed  himself.  He  would 
have  been  forgotten  had  he  not  been  so  utterly  execrated  by  all  France. 
Those  who  knew  him  best  hated  him  the  worst.  His  servants  and  vassals 
detected  the  fraud,  and,  hunting  him  out,  found  him  in  the  park  of  his 
friend. 

"  You  wanted  to  give  us  hay,"  said  they ;  "  you  shall  eat  some  yourself" 

*  Bertrand  de  Moleville  testifies  that  this  was  an  habitual  expression  in  the  mouth  of  Foulon. 
— Annals,  vol.  i.,  p.  347. 

t  "  The  old  man  (Foulon)  believed,  by  such  bravado,  to  please  the  young  military  party,  and 
recommend  himself  for  the  day  he  saw  approaching,  when  the  court,  wanting  to  strike  some  des- 
perate blow,  would  look  out  for  a  hardened  villain." — Michelet,  vol.  ii.,  p.  10. 

}  Beaulieu's  Memoirs,  vol.  ii.,  p.  10. 

(}  "  Foulon  had  a  son-in-law  after  his  own  heart — Berthier,  the  intendant  of  Paris,  a  shrewd 
but  hard-hearted  man,  and  unscrupulous,  as  confessed  by  the  Royalists.  A  libertine  at  the  age 
of  fifty,  in  spite  of  his  numerous  family,  he  purchased  on  all  sides,  so  it  was  said,  little  girls 
twelve  years  of  age.  He  knew  well  that  he  was  detested  by  the  Parisians,  and  was  but  too  hap- 
py to  find  an  opportunity  of  making  war  upon  them." — Michelet,  p.  184. 


136  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [CUAP.  XV. 

The  awful  hour  of  blind  popular  vengeance  had  come.  They  tied  a  truss 
of  hay  upon  his  back,  threw  a  collar  of  thistles  over  his  neck,  and  bound  a 
nosegay  of  nettles  upon  his  breast.  They  then  led  him  on  foot  to  Paris,  to 
the  Hotel  de  Ville,  and  demanded  that  he  should  be  fairly  tried  and  legally 
punished.  At  the  same  time  Berthier  was  arrested  as  he  was  hastening  to 
the  frontier. 

The  municipality  were  in  great  perplexity.  They  had  no  power  to  sit  in 
judgment  as  a  criminal  court.  The  old  courts  were  broken  up  and  no  new 
ones  had  as  yet  been  established.  It  was  six  o'clock  in  the  morning  when 
he  was  presented  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  The  news  of  his  arrest  spread 
rapidly  through  Paris,  and  the  Place  de  Grtive  was  soon  thronged  with  an 
excited  multitude.  Foulon  was  universally  known  as  well  as  execrated. 
La  Fayette  was  anxious  to  send  him  to  the  protection  of  a  prison,  that  he 
might  subsequently  receive  a  legal  trial  for  his  deeds  of  inhumanity. 

"  Gentlemen,"  said  La  Fayette  to  the  people,  "I  can  not  blame  your  in- 
dignation against  this  man.  I  have  always  considered  him  a  great  culprit, 
and  no  punishment  is  too  severe  for  him.  He  shall  receive  the  punishment 
he  merits.  But  he  has  accomplices,  and  we  must  know  them.  I  will  con- 
duct him  to  the  Abbaye,  where  we  will  draw  up  charges  against  him,  and 
he  shall  be  tried  and  punished  according  to  the  laws."* 

The  people  applauded  this  speech,  and  Foulon  insanely  joined  -with  them 
in  the  applause.  This  excited  their  suspicion  that  some  plot  was  forming 
for  his  rescue.     A  man  from  the  crowd  cried  out, 

"  What  is  the  use  of  judging  a  man  who  has  been  judged  these  thirty 
years  ?" 

This  cry  was  Foulon's  death-warrant.  It  kindled  anew  the  flame  of  in- 
dignation and  it  now  burned  unquenchably.  The  enraged  populace  clam- 
ored for  their  victim.  The  surgings  of  the  multitude  were  like  the  tumult 
of  the  ocean  in  a  storm.  The  countless  thousands  pressed  on,  sweeping 
electors,  judges,  and  witnesses  before  them,  and  Foulon  was  seized,  no  one 
can  tell  by  whom  or  how,  till  at  last  he  was  found  in  the  street  with  a  cord 
around  his  neck,  while  the  mob  were  attempting  to  hang  him  upon  a  lamp- 
post. Twice  the  iron  cut  the  cord,  and  the  old  man  on  his  knees  begged  for 
mercy.  But  the  infuriated  populace  were  unrelenting.  A  third  rope  was 
obtained,  and  the  poor  man  was  soon  dangling  lifeless  in  the  air. 

While  these  scenes  were  trans])iring  Berthier  was  brought  into  the  city. 
He  was  in  a  cabriolet,  that  the  people  might  have  a  sight  of  their  inhuman 
persecutor.  A  frightful  mob  surrounded  him,  filling  the  air  with  menaces 
and  execrations.  A  placard  was  borne  before  him  with  this  inscription  in 
large  letters : 

"  He  hcos  devoured  the  substance  of  the  people ;  he  has  been  the  slave  of 
the  rich  and  the  tyrant  of  the  poor ;  he  has  robbed  the  king  and  France  ;  ho 
has  betrayed  his  country."f 

The  mLserablc  wretch  was  dragged  up  the  steps  of  the  Hotel  de  A^ille. 
But  the  mob  was  now  in  the  ascendency.     There  was  no  longer  law  or  even 

*  An  appeal  to  tlio  then  oxistinR  courts  wouUl  have  secured  the  trial  of  Foulon  by  his  own  col- 
IcaRiii-H  and  ucconipiica-H,  the  ancient  magistrates,  tlie  only  judges  then  empowered  to  act.  This 
was  evident  to  all.     Sec  Miehelet,  p.  187.  f  Deux  Amis  do  la  Lil)ertd,  vol.  ii.,  p.  60. 


1789.] 


THE  KING  VISITS  PARIS. 


137 


semblance  of  authority.  An  attempt  was  made  bj  tbe  National  Guard  to 
convey  him  to  the  Abbaye ;  but  the  moment  they  appeared  with  their  pris- 
oner in  the  street  the  crowd  fell  irresistibly  upon  him.  Seizing  a  gun,  he 
fought  lil^e  a  tiger ;  but  he  soon  fell,  pierced  with  bayonets.*    A  dragoon 


THE  ASSASSINATION   OF   BEETHIEE. 


tore  out  his  heart,  and  carried  it  dripping  with  blood  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville, 
saying,  "  Here  is  the  heart  of  Berthier  !"f     The  man  attempted  an  extenua. 

*  "These  people,"  says  Michelet,  "whom  Mirabeau  termed  so  well  the  refuse  of  public  con- 
tempt, are  as  if  restored  to  character  by  punishment.  The  gallows  becomes  their  apotheosis. 
They  are  now  become  interesting  victims — the  martyrs  of  monarchy ;  their  legend  will  go  on  in- 
creasing in  pathetic  fictions.  Mr.  Burke  canonized  them  and  prayed  on  their  tomb." — Historical 
View  of  the  French  Revolution,  p.  190. 

t  Sir  Archibald  Alison,  true  to  his  instincts  as  the  advocate  of  aristocratic  usurpation,  care- 
fully conceals  the  character  of  these  men,  which  drew  down  upon  them  the  vengeance  of  the 
mob.  Impartial  history,  while  denouncing  the  ferocity  of  the  mob,  should  not  conceal  those 
outrages  which  roused  the  people  to  madness. 


138  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ClIAP.  XV. 

tion  of  his  ferocity  by  declaring  that  Bcrthier  had  caused  the  death  of  his 
father.  His  comrades,  however,  deemed  such  brutality  a  disgrace  to  their 
corps.  They  told  him  that  he  must  die,  and  that  they  would  all  fight  him 
in  turn  until  he  was  killed.     He  was  killed  that  night.* 

These  deeds  of  violence  excited  the  disgust  of  Bailly,  the  mayor,  and  La 
Fayette.  Having  such  evidence  that  both  the  municipality  and  the  National 
Guard  were  impotent,  both  La  Fayette  and  Bailly  tendered  their  resignations. 

They  were,  however,  prevailed  upon  to  continue  in  office  by  the  most 
earnest  solicitations  of  the  friends  of  France.f 

A  report  was  spread  throughout  the  kingdom  that  the  fugitive  princes  and 
nobles  were  organizing  a  force  on  the  frontiers  for  the  invasion  of  France, 
that  the  armies  of  foreign  despots  were  at  their  command,  and  that  aU  the 
Royalists  in  France  were  conspiring  to  welcome  them.  The  panic  which 
pervaded  the  kingdom  was  fearful.  France,  just  beginning  to  breathe  the 
atmosphere  of  liberty,  was  threatened  with  chains  of  slavery  more  heavy 
than  had  ever  been  worn  before.  The  energies  of  a  semi-enfranchised  peo- 
ple were  roused  to  the  utmost  vigor.  Every  city,  and  every  village  of  any 
importance,  organized  a  municipal  government  in  sympathy  with  the  mu- 
nicipality in  Paris.  The  peasantry  in  the  rural  districts,  hating  the  nobles 
who  had  long  oppressed  them,  attacked  and  burned  their  castles.  There 
was  a  universal  rising  of  the  Third  Estate  against  the  tyranny  of  the  priv- 
ileged classes,  assailing  that  tyranny  with  the  only  instrument  at  its  com- 
mand— blind  brutal  force.  In  one  week  three  millions  of  men  assumed  the 
military  character,  and  organized  themselves  for  the  defense  of  the  kingdom. 
The  tri-colored  cockade  became  the  national  uniform. 

The  National  Assembly,  intently  occupied  in  framing  a  constitution,  was 
greatly  disturbed  by  reports  of  these  wide-spread  acts  of  violence ;  yet  dailv 
delegations  arrived  with  vows  of  homage  from  the  different  provinces,  and 
with  their  recognition  of  the  authority  of  the  national  representatives. 

Necker  was  in  exile  at  Basle.  He  had  left  the  Polignacs  in  pride  and 
power  at  Versailles ;  they  now  were  fugitives.  One  morning  one  of  the  Po- 
lignacs hastened  to  Necker's  apartment  and  informed  him  of  the  overthrow 
of  the  court  and  the  triumph  of  the  people.  Necker  had  just  received  these 
tidings  when  a  courier  placed  in  his  hand  the  letter  of  the  king  recalling  him 
to  the  ministry.  The  grandest  of  triumphs  greeted  him  from  the  moment 
his  carriage  entered  France  until  he  was  received  with  a  delirium  of  joy  in 
the  streets  of  Paris.  The  people,  who  had  with  lawless  violence  punished 
Foulon  and  Berthier,  who  had  conspired  so  inhumanly  for  the  overthrow  of 
their  liberties,  were  determined  that  others,  who  with  equal  malignity  had 

*  "  It  is  nn  indisputable  fnct  that  the  murder  of  Foulon  and  Berthier  was  not  looked  upon  br 
the  majority  of  the  people  of  Paris  with  horror  and  dispust.  So  unpojndar  were  these  two  men 
that  their  death  was  viewed  as  an  act  of  justice,  onlv  irregular  in  its  execution.  Frenchmen 
were  still  accustomed  to  witness  the  odious  punishment  of  torture  and  the  wheel ;  and  societv 
may  heme  learn  a  lesson  that  the  sight  of  cruel  executions  tends  to  destroy  the  feelings  of  hu- 
manity."— Frnnrr  audits  lievo/iitioiis,  (11/  (.'eon/e  Lour/,  ran.    p.  47. 

t  "The  pc.pl,.  and  the  militia  did  actually  throng  around  La  Favefte,  and  promised  the  ut- 
most obedience  in  future.  On  this  condition  he  resumed  the  comman.l;  and  subse.|uenflv  he 
had  the  satisfaction  of  ,)reventiiig  many  disturbanees  by  his  own  energy  and  the  ze.U  of  the 
troops." — Thiers,  yol.  i.,  p.  7G. 


1789.]  THE  KING  VISITS  PARIS.  139 

conspired  against  them,  should  also  be  condemned.  Necker  humanely  re- 
solved that  an  act  of  general  amnesty  should  be  passed.  Many  of  his  friends 
assured  him  that  it  was  not  safe  to  attempt  to  secure  the  passage  of  such  a 
measure ;  that  the  crimes  of  the  leaders  of  the  court  were  too  great  to  be 
thus  easily  forgotten ;  that  the  indignant  nation,  finding  Necker  pleading 
the  cause  of  the  court,  would  think  that  he  had  been  bought  over ;  and  that 
thus  he  would  only  secure  his  own  ruin.  But  Necker,  relying  upon  his  pop- 
ularity, resolved  to  make  the  trial.  On  the  29th  of  July  he  repaired  to  the 
Hotel  de  Ville.  As  he  passed  through  the  streets  and  entered  the  spacious 
hall,  he  was  received  with  rapturous  applause.  Deeming  his  popularity  equal 
to  the  emergence,  he  demanded  a  general  amnesty.  In  the  enthusiasm  of 
the  moment  it  was  granted  by  acclamation.  Necker  retired  to  his  apart- 
ments delighted  with  his  success ;  but  before  the  sun  had  set  he  found  him- 
self cruelly  deceived.  The  Assembly,  led  by  Mirabeau,  remonstrated  per- 
emptorily against  this  usurpation  of  power  by  the  Municipality  of  Paris,  as- 
serting that  that  body  had  no  authority  either  to  condemn  or  to  pardon.  The 
measure  of  amnesty  was  annulled  by  the  Assembly,  and  the  detention  of  the 
prisoners  confirmed. 

The  great  question  which  now  agitated  the  Assembly  was,  what  measures 
were  to  be  adopted  to  bring  order  out  of  the  chaos  into  which  France  was 
plunged.  All  the  old  courts  were  virtually  annihilated.  No  new  courts 
had  been  organized  with  the  sanction  of  national  authority.  The  nobles 
and  all  their  friends,  in  conference  with  the  emigrants  and  foreign  despots, 
were  conspiring  to  reinstate  the  reign  of  despotic  power.  The  peoj)le  were 
in  a  state  of  terror.  The  degraded,  the  desperate,  the  vicious,  in  banditti 
hordes,  were  sweeping  the  country,  burning  and  pillaging  indiscriminately. 
It  was  proposed  to  publish  a  decree  enjoining  upon  the  people  to  demean 
themselves  peaceably,  to  pay  such  taxes  and  duties  as  were  not  yet  sup- 
pressed, and  to  yield  obedience  for  the  present  to  the  old  laws  of  the  realm, 
obnoxious  and  unjust  as  they  undeniably  were. 

While  this  question  was  under  discussion,  the  Yiscount  de  Noailles  and 
the  Duke  d' Aguillon,  both  distinguished  members  of  the  nobility,  ascended 
the  tribune  and  declared  that  it  was  vain  to  attempt  to  quiet  the  people  by 
force,  that  the  only  way  of  appeasing  them  was  by  removing  the  cause  of 
their  sufferings.  They  then,  though  both  of  them  members  of  the  privileged 
class,  nobly  avowed  the  enormity  of  the  aggressions  under  which,  by  the 
name  of  feudal  rights,  the  people  were  oppressed,  and  voted  for  the  repeal 
of  those  atrocities. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  in  this  great  revolution  the  boldest  and  ablest 
friends  of  popular  rights  came  out  from  the  body  of  the  nobles  themselves. 
Some  were  influenced  by  as  pure  motives  as  can  move  the  human  heart. 
With  others,  perhaps,  selfish  and  ambitious  motives  predominated.  Among 
the  most  active  in  all  these  movements,  we  see  La  Fayette,  Talleyrand, 
Sieyes,  Mirabeau,  and  the  Duke  of  Orleans.  But  for  the  aid  of  these  men, 
whatever  may  have  been  the  motives  which  influenced  the  one  or  the  other, 
the  popular  cause  could  not  have  triumphed.  And  now  we  find,  in  the 
National  Assembly,  two  of  the  most  distinguished  of  the  nobles  rising  and 
themselves  proposing  the  utter  abolition  of  all  feudal  rights. 


140  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XV. 

It  was  the  4th  of  August,  1789,  -when  this  memorable  scene  was  enacted 
in  the  National  Assembly,  one  of  the  most  remarkable  which  ever  transpired 
on  earth.  The  whole  body  of  the  nobles  seems  to  have  been  seized  with  a 
paroxysm  of  magnanimity  and  disinterestedness.  One  of  the  deputies  of 
the  Tiers  Elai,  M.  Kerengal,  in  the  dress  of  a  farmer,  gave  a  frightful  picture 
of  the  sufferings  of  the  people  under  feudal  oppression.*  There  was  no 
more  discussion.  No  voice  defended  feudality.  The  nobles,  one  after  an- 
other, renounced  all  their  prerogatives.  The  clergy  surrendered  their  tithes. 
The  deputies  of  the  towns  and  of  the  provinces  gave  up  their  special  priv- 
ileges, and,  in  one  short  night,  all  those  customs  and  laws  by  which,  for 
ages,  one  man  had  been  robbed  to  enrich  another  were  scattered  to  the 
winds.  Equality  of  rights  was  established  between  all  individuals  and  all 
parts  of  the  French  territory.  Louis  XYI.  was  then  proclaimed  the  restorei 
of  French  liberty.  It  was  decreed  that  a  medal  should  be  struck  off  in  his 
honor,  in  memory  of  that  glorious  night.  And  when  the  Archbishop  of 
Paris  proposed  that  God's  goodness  should  be  acknowledged  in  a  solemn 
Te  Deum,  to  be  celebrated  in  the  king's  chapel,  in  the  presence  of  the  king 
and  of  all  the  members  of  the  National  Assembly,  it  was  carried  by  accla- 
mation. During  the  whole  of  this  exciting  scene,  when  sacrifices  were  made 
such  as  earth  never  witnessed  before ;  when  nobles  surrendered  their  titles, 
their  pensions,  and  their  incomes ;  when  towns  and  corporations  surrender- 
ed their  privileges  and  pecuniary  immunities ;  when  prelates  relinquished 
their  tithes  and  their  benefices ;  not  a  solitary  voice  of  opposition  or  remon- 
strance was  heard.  The  whole  Assembly — clergy,  nobles,  and  Tiers  Etat 
— moved  as  one  man.  "  It  seemed,"  says  M.  Raljaud,  "  as  if  France  was 
near  being  regenerated  in  the  course  of  a  smglc  night.  So  true  it  is  that 
the  happiness  of  a  people  is  easily  to  be  accomplished,  when  those  who  gov- 
ern are  less  occupied  with  themselves  than  with  the  people."t 

It  subsequently,  however,  appeared  that  this  seeming  unanimity  was  not 
real.  "  The  impulse,"  writes  Thiers,  "  was  general ;  but  amid  this  enthu- 
siasm it  was  easy  to  see  that  certain  of  the  privileged  persons,  so  far  from 
being  sincere,  were  desirous  only  of  making  matters  worse."  This  was  the 
measure  which  the  unrelenting  nobles  adopted  to  regain  their  ppwer.  Find- 
ing that  they  could  not  resist  the  torrent,  they  endeavored  to  swell  its  vol- 
ume and  to  give  impulse  to  its  rush,  that  it  might  not  only  sweep  away  all 
the  rubbish  which  through  ages  had  been  accumulating,  but  that  it  might 
also  deluge  every  field  of  fertility,  and  sweep,  in  indiscriminate  ruin,  all  the 
abodes  of  industry  and  all  the  creations  of  art.  It  was  now  their  sole  en- 
deavor to  plunge  l^rance  into  a  state  of  perfect  anarchy,  with  the  desperate 

♦  "You  would  have  prevented,"  snid  Kerengal,  "the  burninR  of  the  ehateau,  if  vou  had  l>een 
more  laoiiii-t  in  deilarinj,'  that  the  terrible  arms  which  they  contain,  and  which  for  apes  have 
tormented  the  iR-oplc,  were  to  he  destroyed.  Let  these  arms,  the  title-deeds,  which  insult  not 
only  modesty  but  even  humanity,  whidi  humiliate  the  human  species  bv  requiring'  men  to  ho 
yoked  to  a  wapon  like  beasts  of  labor,  which  compel  men  to  i)ass  the  night  in  beating  the  ponds 
to  i)revent  the  frogs  from  disturbing  the  sleej)  of  their  voluptuous  lords,  let  them  bo  brought 
here.  Which  of  us  would  not  make  an  expiatory  pile  of  these  infamous  j)archmcnt,s  ?  You  can 
never  restore  quiet  to  the  peopl.-  until  they  are  redeemed  from  the  destruction  of  feudalism." 

t  "That  night,  which  an  enemy  of  the  Kcvohition  designated  at  the  time  the  Saint  Bartholo- 
mew of  properly,  waaouly  the  Saint  Bart iiolomew  of  abuses."— JAvwr,  ],.  54. 


1789.]  FORMING  THE  CONSTITUTION.       '  14]^ 

hope  that  from  the  chaos  they  might  rebiiild  their  ancient  despotism ;  that 
the  people,  pkmged  into  unparalleled  misery,  might  themselves  implore  the 
restoration  of  the  ancient  regime." 

This  combination  of  the  highest  of  the  aristocracy  and  of  the  clergy  to 
exasperate  the  mob  immeasurably  increased  the  difficulties  of  the  patri- 
ots. The  court  party,  with  all  its  wealth'  and  influence — a  wealth  and  influ- 
ence which  had  been  accumulating  for  ages — scattered  its  emissaries  every 
where  to  foster  discord,  to  excite  insurrection,  to  stimulate  the  mob  to  all 
brutality,  that  the  Eevolution  might  have  an  infamous  name  through  Eu- 
rope, and  might  be  execrated  in  France.  In  almost  every  act  of  violence 
which  immediately  succeeded,  the  hand  of  these  instigators  from  palaces  and 
castles  was  distinctly  to  be  seen.  Indeed,  it  was  generally  supposed  that 
even  Berthier  and  Foulon  were  wrested  from  the  protection  of  La  Fayette 
by  emissaries  of  the  court.  And  the  British  government  was  so  systemati- 
cally assailed  for  exciting  disturbances  in  France,  that  the  Duke  of  Dorset, 
British  embassador  at  the  time,  found  it  necessary  to  present  a  formal  con- 
tradiction of  the  charge. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

FORMING  THE   CONSTITUTION. 


Ai-ming  of  the  Peas<ants. — Destruction  of  Feudal  Charters. — Sermon  of  the  Abbe'  Fauchet. — 
Three  Classes  in  the  Assembly. — Declaration  of  Rights. — The  Three  Assemblies. — The  Power 
of  the  Press. — Efforts  of  William  Pitt  to  sustain  the  Nobles. — Questions  on  the  Constitution. 
— Two  Chambers  in  one  ? — The  Veto. — Famine  in  the  City. — The  King's  Plate  melted. — The 
Tax  of  a  Quarter  of  each  one's  Income. — Statement  of  Jefferson. 

An  utterly-exhausted  treasury  compelled  Louis  XVL  and  the  court  of 
France  to  call  together  the  States-General.  The  deputies  of  the  people,  tri- 
umphing over  the  privileged  classes,  resolved  themselves  into  a  National 
Assembly,  and  then  proceeded  to  the  formation  of  a  constitution  which 
should  limit  the  hitherto  despotic  powers  of  the  crown.  Though  there 
were  a  few  individuals  of  the  nobles  and  of  the  higher  clergy  who  cordially 
espoused  the  popular  cause,  the  great  mass  of  the  privileged  class  clung 
firmly  together  in  desperate  endeavors  to  regain  their  iniquitous  power. 
Many  of  these  were  now  emigrants,  scattered  throughout  Europe,  and  im- 
ploring the  interference  of  foreign  courts  in  their  behalf  The  old  royalist 
army,  some  two  hundred  thousand  strong,  amply  equipped  and  admirably 
disciplined,  still  retained  its  organization,  and  was  still  under  its  old  oflicers, 
the  nobles ;  but  the  rank  and  file  of  this  army  were  from  the  people,  and 
their  sympathies  were  with  the  popular  cause. 

The  nobles  were  now  prepared  for  the  most  atrocious  act  of  treason. 
They  wished  to  surrender  the  naval  arsenals  of  France  to  the  English  fleet, 
so  that  England,  in  possession  of  the  great  magazines  of  war,  could  throw 
any  number  of  soldiers  into  the  kingdom  unresisted,  while  the  Prussians 
and  Austrians,  headed  by  the  emigrant  noblesse,  should  invade  France  from 
the  east.  The  English  government,  however,  which  subsequently  became 
an  accomplice  in  the  conspiracy  of  the  French  nobles,  by  accepting  the  sur- 


142  THE  FRENCH  KE  VOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XVI. 

render  of  Toulon,  was  not  yet  prepared  to  take  the  bold  step  of  invading 
France  sim})ly  to  rivet  the  chains  of  despotism  upon  the  French  people. 

The  English  embassador,  Dorset,  who  was  residing  at  Versailles,  revealed 
the  plot  to  the  ministers  of  the  king.  They,  however,  kept  the  secret  until 
it  was  disclosed  by  an  intercepted  letter  from  Dorset  to  the  Count  d'Artois 
(subsequently  Charles  X).  This  discovery  vastly  increased  the  alarm  of  the 
nation.  Perils  were  now  multiplying  on  every  side.  The  most  appalling 
rumors  of  invasion  filled  the  air.  Bands  of  marauders,  haggard,  starving, 
brutal,  swept  over  the  country,  burning,  devouring,  and  destroying.  It  was 
supposed  at  first  that  they  were  the  advance  battalions  of  the  invaders,  sent 
by  the  emigrants  to  chastise  France  into  subjection.  Alarm  increased  to 
terror.  Mothers  in  almost  a  delirium  of  fear  sought  places  of  concealment 
for  their  children.  The  peasant  in  the  morning  ran  to  his  field  to  see  if  it 
had  been  laid  waste.  At  night  he  trembled  lest  he  should  awake  to  behold 
conflagration  and  ruin.  There  was  no  law.  The  king's  troops  were  objects 
of  especial  dread.  The  most  insolent  of  the  nobles  were  in  command,  and 
with  money  and  wine  they  sought  to  bribe  especially  the  Germans  and  the 
Swiss  to  be  obedient  to  their  wishes. 

It  was  this  peril  which  armed  France.  Villages,  peasants,  all  were  united 
to  defend  themselves  against  these  terrible  brigands.  The  arsenals  of  the 
old  castles  contained  arms.  Nerved  by  despair,  the  roused  multitudes  si- 
multaneously besieged  all  these  castles,  and  demanded  and  seized  the  weapons 
necessary  for  their  defense.  It  was  as  a  movement  of  magic.  A  sudden  dan- 
ger, every  where  menacing,  every  where  worked  the  same  result.  In  one 
short  week  France  sprung  up  armed  and  ready  for  war.  Three  millions 
of  men  had  come  from  the  furrow  and  the  shop,  and  fiercely  demanded 
"Where  are  the  brigands?  Lead  us  to  meet  our  foes,  whoever  and  wher- 
ever  they  may  be."* 

The  lords  in  an  hour  found  themselves  helpless.  The  peasants,  hitherto 
so  tame  and  servile,  were  now  soldiers,  roused  to  determination  and  proud 
of  their  newly  discovered  power.  Awful  was  the  retribution.  The  chateaux 
blazed — funeral  fires  of  feudality — on  every  hill  and  in  every  valley.  One 
can  only  be  surprised  that  the  hour  of  retribution  should  have  been  delayed 
for  so  many  ages,  and  that  when  it  came  the  infuriated,  degraded,  brutalized 
masses  did  not  proceed  to  even  greater  atrocities.  Though  deeds  of  cruelty 
were  perpetrated  which  cause  the  ear  that  hears  to  tingle,  still,  on  the 
whole,  mercy  predominated. 

In  many  cases  lords  who  had  treated  their  serfs  kindly  were  protected  by 
their  vassals,  as  children  would  protect  a  father.  The  Marquis  of  Montfer- 
mail  w:us  tlms  shielded  from  harm.  In  Dauphind  a  castle  was  assailed  dur- 
ing the  absence  of  the  lord.  His  lady  was  at  home  alone  with  the  children. 
The  i)eiusauts  left  the  castle  and  its  inmates  unharmed,  destroying  only  those 
leudal  cliarters  which  were  the  title-deeds  of  despotism. 

♦  -Our  Revolution,"  naid  Nupolcon  nt  St.  Helena,  "was  n  natural  convulsion,  as  irresistible 
in  itj»  offects  an  an  enq.tion  of  Vesuvius.  When  the  mysterious  fusion  whieh  takes  j.laee  in  the 
entrails  of  tiie  earth  is  nt  such  a  erisis  that  an  explosion  follow.s  the  eruption  hursts  forth.  The 
unjicreeived  working's  of  the  discontent  of  tlic  i)eopk-  follow  exactly  the  same  coui-se.  In  Eranee 
the  Buffi^riuKS  of  the  i)eoi)le,  the  moral  comhinations  whieh  produce  a  revolution,  had  arrived  at 
maturity,  and  an  ex]tlosioa  accordingly  took  place." 


1789.]  FORMING  THE  CONSTITUTION.  143 

These  titles,  engrossed  on  fine  parchment  and  embellished  with  gorgeous 
seals,  were  the  pride  of  the  noble  family — the  evidence  of  their  antiquity. 
They  were  preserved  with  great  reverence,  deposited  in  costly  caskets, 
which  caskets,  enveloped  in  velvet,  were  safely  jDlaced  in  oaken  chests,  and 
those  chests,  iron-ribbed  and  with  ponderous  locks,  were  guarded  in  a  strong 
part  of  the  feudal  tower.  The  peasants  ever  gazed  with  awe  upon  the 
tower  of  the  archives.  They  understood  the  signilicancy  of  those  title-deeds 
— the  badges  of  their  degradation,  the  authority  to  which  the  lords  ajDpealed 
in  support  of  their  tyranny,  insolence,  and  nameless  outrages. 

"  Our  country-people,"  writes  Michelet,  "  went  straight  to  the  tower.  For 
many  centuries  that  tower  had  seemed  to  sneer  at  the  valley,  sterilizing, 
blighting,  oppressing  it  with  its  deadly  shadow.  A  guardian  of  the  country 
in  barbarous  times,  standing  there  as  a  sentinel,  it  became  later  an  object  of 
horror.  In  1789  what  was  it  but  the  odious  witness  of  bondage,  a  perpetual 
outrage  to  repeat  every  morning  to  the  man  trudging  to  his  labor  the  ever- 
lasting humiliation  of  his  race  ?  '  "Work,  work  on,  son  of  serfs !  Earn  for 
another's  profit.  "Work,  and  without  hope.'  Every  morning  and  every 
evening,  for  a  thousand  years,  perhaps  more,  that  tower  had  been  cursed. 
A  day  came  when  it  was  to  fall. 

"  0  glorious  day,  how  long  have  you  been  in  coming !  How  long  our 
fathers  expected  and  dreamed  of  you  in  vain !  The  hope  that  their  sons 
would  at  length  behold  you  was  alone  able  to  support  them,  otherwise  they 
would  have  no  longer  consented  to  live.  They  would  have  died  in  their 
agony.  And  what  has  enabled  me,  their  companion,  laboring  beside  them 
in  the  furrow  of  history  and  drinking  their  bitter  cup,  to  revive  the  suffering 
Middle  Ages,  and  yet  not  die  of  grief?  Was  it  not  you,  0  glorious  day,  first 
day  of  Hberty  ?     I  have  lived  in  order  to  relate  your  history  !" 

Thus  far  the  religious  sentiment  of  France,  as  expressed  by  nearly  all  the 
pastors  and  the  great  proportion  of  their  Christian  flocks,  was  warmly  in 
favor  of  the  Revolution.  The  higher  clergy  alone,  bishops,  archbishops,  and 
cardinals,  who  were  usually  the  younger  sons  of  the  nobles,  and  were  thus 
interested  in  the  perpetuation  of  abuses,  united  with  the  lords.  As  in  the 
National  Assembly  so  it  was  in  the  nation  itself,  that  the  working  clergy 
were  among  the  most  conspicuous  of  the  sons  of  freedom.  Eeligious  services 
were  held  in  the  churches  in  grateful  commemoration  of  the  fall  of  the  Bas- 
tille.^    The  vast  cathedral  of  Notre  Dame  was  thronged  to  listen  to  a  ser- 

*  Sladame  de  Genlis,  who  witnessed  the  demolition  of  the  Bastille,  in  her  gossiping  yet  very 
interesting  memoirs,  writes,  "I  experienced  the  most  exquisite  joy  in  witnessing  the  demolition 
of  that  terrible  monument,  in  which  had  been  immured  and  where  had  perished,  without  any 
judicial  forms,  so  many  innocent  victims.  The  desire  to  have  my  pupils  see  it  led  me  to  take 
them  from  St.  Leu  to  pass  a  few  hours  in  Paris,  that  they  might  see  from  the  garden  of  Beau- 
marchais  all  the  people  of  Paris  engaged  in  destroying  the  Bastille.  It  is  impossible  to  give  one 
an  idea  of  that  spectacle.  It  must  have  been  seen  to  conceive  of  it  as  it  was.  That  redoubtable 
fortress  was  covered  with  men,  women,  and  children,  toiling  with  inexpressible  ardor  upon  the 
loftiest  towers  and  battlements.  The  astonishing  number  of  workmen,  their  acli\'ity,  their  en- 
thusiasm, the  joy  with  which  they  saw  this  frightful  monument  of  despotism  crumbling  down,  the 
avenging  hands  which  seemed  to  be  those  of  Providence,  and  which  annihilated  with  so  much 
rapidity  the  work  of  many  ages,  all  that  spectacle  sjioke  equally  to  the  imagination  and  the 
heart." — Mhnoires  sur  le  Dix-huUieme  Sicck  et  la  Revolution  Fran^aise  de  Madame  la  Comtesse  de 
Genlis,  tome  iii.,  p.  261. 


l^  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XVI. 

mon  from  the  Abbe  Fauchet,  who  consecrated  to  the  memory  of  those  who 
fell  on  that  occasion  the  homage  of  his  extraordinary  eloquence,  lie  select- 
ed for  his  text  the  words  of  St.  Paul,  "  For,  brethren,  ye  have  been  called 
unto  liberty." — Gal.  v.  13. 

"  The  fidse  interpreters  of  the  divine  oracle,"  said  the  abbe,  "  have  wish- 
ed, in  the  name  of  heaven,  to  keep  the  people  in  subjection  to  the  will  of 
their  masters.  They  have  consecrated  despotism.  They  have  rendered 
God  an  accomplice  with  tyrants.  These  false  teachers  exult  because  it  is 
wTitten,  ^Bender  unto  Ctesar  the  things  thai  are  Ccesar's.^  But  that  which  is 
not  Caesar's,  is  it  necessary  to  render  to  him  that  ?  And  liberty  docs  not  be- 
long to  Caesar.     It  belongs  to  human  nature."* 

The  abbe  unquestionably  read  the  divine  oracles  aright.  The  comer- 
stone  of  true  democracy  can  only  be  found  in  the  word  of  God.  The  rev- 
elation there  presented  of  God  as  a  common  father,  and  all  mankind  as  his 
children,  made  of  one  blood,  brethren — it  is  that  revelation  upon  which  is 
founded  the  great  fundamental  principle  of  democracy,  equality  of  rights. 
The  very  highest  attainment  of  political  wisdom  is  the  realization  of  the  di- 
vine word,  "  Whatsoever  ye  would  thai  others  should  do  unto  you,  do  ye  even  so 
unto  themP 

The  whole  audience  were  transported  with  the  clear  and  eloquent  enunci- 
ation of  the  politics  of  the  gospel  of  Christ.  As  the  orator  left  the  sacred 
cathedral  he  was  greeted  with  the  loudest  plaudits.  A  civic  crown  was 
placed  upon  his  brow,  and  two  companies  of  the  National  Guard  escorted 
him  home,  with  the  waving  of  banners  and  the  clangor  of  trumpets,  and 
through  the  acclamations  of  the  multitudes  who  thronged  the  streets.f 

While  France  was  in  this  state  of  tumult  and  terror,  threatened  with  in- 
vasion from  abroad,  and  harassed  by  brigands  at  home,  the  nobles  plotting 
treason,  law  powerless,  and  universal  anarchy  reigning,  the  National  Assem- 
bly was  anxiously  deliberating  to  restore  order  to  the  country  and  to  usher 
in  the  reign  of  justice  and  prosperity.  The  old  edifice  was  destroyed.  A 
new  one  was  to  be  erected.  But  there  were  now  three  conspicuous  parties 
developing  themselves  in  the  Assembly. 

The  first  was  composed  of  the  nobles  and  the  higher  clergy,  who  still,  as 
a  body,  adhered  to  the  court,  and  who  eagerly  fomented  disorders  through- 
out the  kingdom,  hoping  thus  to  compel  the  nation,  as  the  only  escape  from 
anarchy,  to  return  to  the  old  monarchy. 

The  second  was  composed  of  the  large  proportion  of  the  Assembly,  sin- 
cere, intelligent,  patriotic  men,  earnest  for  liberty,  but  for  liberty  restrained 
by  law.  They  were  almost  to  a  man  monarchists,  wishing  to  ingraft  iqmn 
tlie  monarchy  of  France  institutions  similar  to  those  of  republican  America^ 
The  English  Constitution  was  in  the  main  their  model. 

A  third  party  was  just  beginning  to  develop  itself,  small  in  numbers,  of 
turbulent,  visionary,  energetic  men,  eager  for  the  overthrow  of  all  the  insti- 

*  Histoirc  (Ics  Montapni^nls,  pnr  Alphonsc  Esquiros,  p.  18. 

+  "Tyranny,"  said  Fauchet,  in  rcfiTcnce  to  the  skeletons  found  in  the  Bastille,  "had  sealed 
them  within  the  walls  of  those  dungeons,  which  she.  hclieved  to  he  eternally  iniin-netrahle  to  the 
llflht.  The  day  of  revelation  is  come.  The  hones  have  arisen  at  the  voice  of  French  liherty. 
They  depose  aKninst  centuries  of  oi>|)rc8sion  and  death,  prophesying  the  regcncratiou  of  human 
nature  and  the  liio  of  nutioua." — Dussaulx,  O'luvre  ties  Sept  Jours. 


1789.]  FORMING  THE  CONSTITUTION.  I45 

tutions  and  customs  of  the  past,  and  for  the  sudden  introduction  of  an  en- 
tirely new  era.  Making  no  allowance  for  the  ignorance  of  the  masses,  and 
for  the  entire  inexperience  of  the  French  in  self-government,  they  wished  to 
cut  loose  from  all  the  restraints  of  liberty  and  of  law,  and  to  plunge  into 
the  wildest  freedom. 

The  first  and  the  third  classes,  the  Aristocrats  and  the  ultra-Democrats, 
joined  hand  in  hand  to  overthrow  the  Moderates,  as  the  middle  party  were 
called,  each  hoping  thus  to  introduce  the  reign  of  its  own  principles.  Thus 
they  both  were  ready  to  exasperate  the  masses  and  to  encourage  violence. 
These  were  the  two  implacable  foes  against  whom  the  Revolution,  and  sub- 
sequently the  Empire  under  Napoleon,  had  ever  to  contend.  Despotism  and 
Jacobinism  have  ever  been  the  two  allied  foes  against  rational  liberty  in 
France. 

The  patriots  of  the  middle,  or  moderate  party,  who  had  not  as  yet  assumed 
any  distinctive  name,  for  the  parties  in  the  Assembly  were  but  just  beginning 
to  marshal  their  forces  for  the  fight,  earnestly  deplored  all  scenes  of  violence. 
Such  scenes  only  thwarted  their  endeavors  for  the  regeneration  of  France. 

The  Assembly  now  engaged  with  great  eagerness  in  drawing  up  a  decla- 
ration of  rights,  to  be  presented  to  the  people  as  the  creed  of  liberty.  It  was 
thought  that  if  such  a  creed  could  be  adopted,  based  upon  those  self-evident 
truths  which  are  in  accordance  with  the  universal  sense  of  right,  the  people 
might  then  be  led  to  rally  around  this  creed  with  a  distinct  object  in  view. 

For  two  months,  from  the  1st  of  August  till  the  early  part  of  October,  the 
Assembly  was  engaged  in  discussing  the  Bill  of  Eights  and  the  Constitution. 
But  it  was  found  that  there  had  now  suddenly  sprung  up  three  Assemblies 
instead  of  one,  each  potent  in  its  sphere,  and  that  between  the  three  a  spirit 
of  rivalry  and  of  antagonism  was  very  rapidly  being  engendered. 

The  first  was  the  National  Assembly  at  Versailles,  originally  consisting  of 
twelve  hundred  deputies,  but  now  dwindled  down  by  emigTation  and  other 
absence  to  about  eight  hundred. 

The  second  was  the  municipal  government  of  Paris,  consisting  of  three 
hundred  representatives  from  the  different  sections  or  wards  of  the  city,  and 
which  held  its  sessions  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  As  Paris  considered  itself 
France,  the  municipality  of  Paris  began  to  arrogate  supreme  power. 

The  third  was  the  colossal  assembly  of  the  Parisian  populace,  an  enormous, 
tumultuous,  excitable  mass,  every  day  gathered  in  the  garden  of  the  Palais 
Royal.  This  assembly,  daily  becoming  more  arrogant,  often  consisted  of 
from  ten  to  twelve  thousand.  It  was  continually  in  session.  Here  was  the 
rendezvous  for  all  of  the  lower  orders,  men  and  women.  Impassioned  ora- 
tors, of  great  powers  of  popular  eloquence,  but  ignorant  and  often  utterly 
unprincipled,  mounted  tables  and  chairs,  and  passionately  urged  all  their 
crude  ideas. 

Reflecting  men  soon  began  to  look  upon  this  assembly  with  alarm.  Its 
loud  murmurs  were  echoed  through  the  nation,  boding  only  evil ;  but  eman- 
cipated France  could  not  commence  its  career  by  prohibiting  liberty  of 
speech.  La  Fayette  anxiously  looked  in  upon  this  portentous  gathering,  and 
listened  to  the  falsehood,  the  exaggerations,  and  the  folly  with  which  its 
speakers  deluded  the  populace,  but  he  could  not  interfere.     Indeed,  it  soon 

K 


146  THE  FKENCH  REVOLUTION.         [ChAP.  XYI. 

became  perilous  for  any  one  in  that  assembly  to  plead  the  cause  of  law  and 
order.  He  was  at  once  accused  as  an  aristocrat,  and  was  in  peril  of  the  doom 
of  Berthier  and  Foulon. 

And  now  suddenly  there  uprose  another  power  which  overshadowed  all 
the  rest — the  power  of  a  free  press.  Newspapers  and  pamphlets  deluged 
the  land.  They  were  read  universally ;  for  the  public  mind  was  so  roused 
that  those  who  could  not  read  themselves  eagerly  listened  to  the  reading 
from  others,  at  the  corners  of  the  streets,  in  shops  and  hovels.''^ 

France  was  now  doomed  to  blood  and  woe.  It  is  easy  to  say  that  if  the 
populace  had  been  virtuous  and  enlightened  all  would  have  gone  well ;  or 
if  the  nobles  and  the  higher  clergy  would  have  united  with  the  true  patriots 
freedom  might  have  been  saved.  But  the  populace  were  not  virtuous  and 
enlightened,  and  the  nobles  were  so  inexorably  hostile  to  all  popular  rights 
that  they  were  resolute  to  whelm  France  in  ruin  rather  than  relinquish  their 
privileges.  France,  as  France  then  was,  could  have  been  saved  by  no  earth- 
ly wisdom.  The  Royalists  openly  declared  that  the  only  chance  of  restoring 
the  old  system  of  government  was  to  have  recourse  to  civil  war,  and  they 
were  eager  to  invoke  so  frightful  a  remedy. 

One  of  the  most  popular  of  the  journals  was  "  The  Friend  of  the  People," 
by  Marat.  This  journal  already  declared  that  the  National  Assembly  was 
full  of  aristocrats,  and  that  it  must  be  dissolved  to  make  way  for  a  bctter.f 
"  We  have  wrested  power,"  wrote  Marat,  "  from  the  nobles  but  to  place  it 
in  the  hands  of  the  moneyed  class.  What  have  we  gained  ?  The  people 
are  still  poor  and  starving.  We  need  another  revolution."  "Yes,"  echoed 
the  mob  of  Paris,  "  we  need  another  revolution." 

The  roar  from  the  Palais  Royal  fell  ominously  upon  the  cars  of  the  As- 
sembly at  Versailles,  and  of  the  municipality  at  the  Hotel  dc  Villc.     And 

*  At  St.  Helena,  the  subject  of  conversation  one  day  turned  upon  the  freedom  of  the  press. 
The  subject  was  discussed  with  much  animation  by  the  companions  of  the  emperor,  he  listcninR 
attentively  to  their  remarks.  "Nothing  can  resist,"  said  one,  "the  influence  of  a  free  press.  It 
is  capable  of  overthrowing  every  government,  of  agitating  every  society,  of  destroying  every  rep- 
utation." "  It  is  only  its  prohibition,"  said  another,  "  which  is  dangerous.  If  it  be  restricted  it 
becomes  a  mine  which  must  explode ;  but  if  left  to  itself  it  is  merely  an  unbent  bow,  that  can  in- 
flict no  wound." 

"  The  liberty  of  the  press,"  said  Napoleon,  "  is  not  a  question  open  for  consideration.  Its  pro- 
hibition under  a  representative  government  is  a  gross  anachronism,  a  downright  absurdity.  I 
therefore,  on  my  return  from  Elba,  abandoned  the  press  to  all  its  excesses,  and  I  am  confident 
that  the  press  in  no  respect  contributed  to  my  downfall." 

In  Napoleon's  last  letter  to  his  son  he  writes,  "  My  son  will  be  obliged  to  allow  the  liberty  of 
the  press.  Tiiis  is  a  necessity  in  the  present  day.  The  liberty  of  the  press  ought  to  become,  in 
the  hands  of  the  government,  a  powerful  auxiliary  in  diffusing  through  all  the  most  distant  cor- 
ners of  the  empire  sound  doctrines  and  good  f)rinciples.  To  leave  it  to  itself  would  be  to  fall 
n-sleep  upon  the  brink  of  danger.  On  the  conclusion  of  a  general  peace  I  would  have  instituted 
a  Directory  <jf  the  Press,  comjjosed  of  the  ablest  men  of  the  country,  and  I  would  have  ditfuscd, 
even  to  llic  most  distant  hamlet,  my  ideas  and  my  intentions."— A«.-j  Casns. 

t  .MiralK-an,  Camille  Desmoulins,  Brissot,  Condorcet,  Mercier,  Carra,  Gorsas,  Marat,  and  Bar- 
rcre,  all  jaiblished  journals,  and  some  of  them  had  a  very  extensive  circulation.  L'Ami  <lu  Pen- 
plf,  by  Marut,  was  a  very  energetic  sheet.  Mirabeau  printed  ten  thousand  copies  of  his  Cotirrier 
dfi  Province.  But  by  far  the  most  popular  and  influential  paper  was  the  Revolutions  de  Paris, 
whose  unknown  editor  w.xs  Loustalot,  a  sincere,  earnest,  laborious  young  man,  who  died  in  i:'.)2, 
at  tlic  age  of  twenty-nine.  Two  hundred  thousand  copies  of  his  paper  were  freciuently  sold.— 
.ViWicHvol.  i.,p.  240. 


1789.]  FORMING  THE  CONSTITUTION.  I47 

now  all  the  starving  trades  and  employments  began  to  congregate  by  them- 
selves for  discussion  and  combined  action.  First  came  the  servants,  desti- 
tute of  place,  of  shelter,  of  bread,  whose  masters  had  fled  from  insurgent  Par- 
is into  the  country  or  had  emigrated.  The  court-yard  of  the  Louvre  was 
their  rendezvous.  The  soldiers  debated  at  the  Oratoire,  the  hair-dressers  in 
the  Elysian  Fields,  and  the  tailors  at  the  Colonnade.*  These  bodies  soon  be- 
came, as  it  were,  committees  of  the  great  central  congress  of  the  populace 
ever  gathered  at  the  Palais  Koyal. 

The  noblest  men  in  the  National  Assembly  were  already  beginning  to  de- 
spond. Firmly,  however,  they  proceeded  in  the  endeavor  to  reconstruct  so- 
ciety upon  the  basis  of  justice  and  liberty.  The  measure  to  which  their  at- 
tention was  now  chiefly  devoted  was  to  adopt  a  Constitution,  which  was  to 
be  prefaced  by  a  Bill  of  Eights,  La  Fayette  was  active  in  this  movement, 
and  was  unquestionably  assisted  by  Thomas  Jefferson,  then  American  min- 
ister at  Paris. 

This  celebrated  declaration  of  rights,  adopted  on  the  18th  of  August, 
1789,  was  a  simple  enunciation  of  those  principles  which  are  founded  in  na- 
ture and  truth  and  which  are  engraven  on  all  hearts.  They  were  axioms 
upon  which  every  intelligent  legislator  must  proceed  in  forming  a  just  code 
of  laws.  It  declares  that  all  mankind  are  born  free  and  equal ;  that  the  ob- 
jects to  be  gained  by  human  governments  are  liberty,  the  security  of  prop- 
erty, and  protection  from  oppression ;  that  sovereignty  resides  in  the  nation 
and  emanates  from  the  people ;  that  law  is  the  expression  of  the  will  of  the 
people ;  that  the  expenses  of  government  should  be  assessed  upon  the  gov- 
erned in  proportion  to  their  property ;  that  all  the  adult  male  inhabitants 
are  entitled  to  vote ;  that  freedom  consists  in  the  liberty  to  do  any  thing 
which  does  not  injure  another,  and  should  have  no  limits  but  its  interfer- 
ence with  the  rights  of  others.f 

These  were  noble  sentiments  nobly  expressed ;  and,  though  execrated  in 
monarchical  Europe,  were  revered  in  republican  America.  These  were  the 
principles  against  which  despotic  Europe,  coalesced  by  the  genius  of  William 
Pitt,  rose  in  arms.:}:  The  battle  was  long  and  bloody.  Millions  perished. 
The  terrible  drama  was  closed,  for  a  season,  by  the  triumph  of  despots  at 
Waterloo.  § 

*  Miguet,  p.  64. 

t  M.  Rabaud  de  St.  Etienne,  a  Christian  patriot  and  one  of  the  most  active  members  of  the 
National  Assembly,  writes:  "It  is  possible  that  all  the  kings  of  Europe  may  form  a  coalition 
against  a  humble  page  of  writing ;  but,  after  a  number  of  cannon-shots,  and  when  those  poten- 
tates have  destroyed  three  or  four  hundred  thousand  men  and  laid  waste  twenty  countries,  it 
will  not  be  the  less  true  that  men  are  born  free  and  equal  as  to  their  rights,  and  that  the  nation  is  the 
sovereign.  And  it  is  possible  that  their  obstinacy  may  have  occasioned  the  discovery  of  other 
truths  which,  but  for  the  wrath  of  those  great  princes,  mankind  would  never  have  thought  of." — 
Political  Reflections,  p.  176. 

J  "All  the  wars  of  the  European  Continent  against  the  Revolution  and  against  the  Empire 
were  begun  by  England  and  supported  by  English  gold.  At  last  the  object  was  attained ;  not 
only  was  the  ancient  family  restored  to  the  throne,  but  France  was  reduced  to  its  original  limits, 
its  naval  force  destroyed,  and  its  commerce  almost  annihilated." — Encyclopcedia  Americana,  Art. 
Great  Britain. 

§  ""William  Pitt,"  said  the  Emperor  Napoleon  at  St.  Helena,  "was  the  master  of  European 
policy.  He  held  in  his  hands  the  moral  fate  of  nations.  He  kindled  the  fire  of  discord  through- 
out the  universe  ;  and  his  name,  like  that  of  Erostratus,  will  be  inscribed  in  history  amid  flames, 


148  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XVI. 

The  Assembly  now  turned  its  attention  to  the  organization  of  the  legisla- 
tive body  of  the  nation.  The  all-absorbing  question  was  whether  the  Na- 
tional Congress  or  Parliament  should  meet  in  one  chamber  or  in  two ;  if  in 
two,  whether  the  upper  house  should  be  an  aristocratic,  hereditary  body, 
like  the  Ilouse  of  Lords  in  the  British  Parliament,  or  an  elective  repubhcan 
Senate,  as  in  the  American  Congress.  The  debate  was  long  and  impas- 
sioned. The  people  would  not  consent  to  an  hereditary  Ilouse  of  Lords, 
which  would  remain  an  almost  impregnable  fortress  of  aristocratic  usurpa- 
tion. They  were,  however,  inclined  to  assent  to  an  upper  house  to  be  com- 
posed exclusively  of  the  clergy  and  the  nobles,  but  to  be  elected  by  the 
people.  To  this  arrangement  the  haughty  lords  peremptorily  refused  their 
assent.  They  were  equally  opposed  to  an  election  to  the  upper  house  even 
by  the  nobles  and  the  clergy,  for  the  high  lords  and  great  dignitaries  of  the 
Church  looked  down  upon  the  lower  nobility  and  upon  the  working  clergy 
with  almost  as  much  contempt  as  they  regarded  the  people.  Finding  the 
nobles  hostile  to  any  reasonable  measure,  the  masses  of  the  people  became 
more  and  more  irritated.  The  vast  gathering  at  the  Palais  Koyal  soon  be- 
came unanimous  in  clamoring  for  but  one  chamber.  The  lords  were  their 
enemies,  and  in  a  house  of  lords  they  could  see  only  a  refuge  for  old  and 
execrable  feudality  and  an  insurmountable  barrier  to  reform.* 

When  the  vote  was  taken  there  were  five  hundred  for  a  single  chamber 

lamentations,  and  tears.  The  first  sparks  of  our  Revolution,  then  the  resistance  that  was  opposed 
to  the  national  will,  and  finally  the  horrid  crimes  that  ensued,  all  were  his  work.  Twenty-five 
years  of  universal  conflagration ;  the  numerous  coalitions  that  added  fuel  to  the  flame;  the  rev- 
olution and  devastation  of  Europe  ;  the  bloodshed  of  nations ;  the  frightful  debt  of  England,  by 
which  all  these  horrors  were  maintained ;  the  pestilential  system  of  loans,  by  which  the  people  of 
Europe  are  ojjpressed ;  the  general  discontent  that  now  prevails — all  must  be  attributed  to  Pitt. 

"Posterity  will  brand  him  as  a  scourge,  and  the  man  so  lauded  in  his  own  time  will  hereafter 
be  regarded  as  the  genius  of  evil.  Not  that  I  consider  him  to  have  been  willfully  atrocious,  or 
doubt  his  having  entertained  the  conviction  that  he  was  acting  right.  But  St.  Bartholomew  had 
also  its  conscientious  advocates.  The  Pope  and  cardinals  celebrated  it  by  a  Te  Dewn,  and  we 
have  no  reason  to  doubt  their  having  done  so  in  sincerity.  Such  is  the  weakness  of  human  rea- 
son and  judgment !  Whctlier  it  be  the  ettcct  of  admiration  and  gratitude  or  the  result  of  mere 
instinct  and  sym])athy,  Pitt  is,  and  will  continue  to  be,  the  idol  of  the  European  aristocracy. 
There  was,  indeed,  a  touch  of  the  Sylla  in  his  character.  His  system  has  kept  tlie  pojjular  cause 
in  check  and  brought  about  the  triumph  of  the  nobles. 

"  As  fur  Fox,  one  must  not  look  for  his  model  among  the  ancients.  He  is  himself  a  model, 
and  liis  princijtlcs  will  sooner  or  later  rule  the  world.  Certainly  the  death  of  Fox  was  one  of 
the  fatalities  of  my  career.  Had  his  life  been  prolonged  afl'airs  would  have  taken  a  totally  dif- 
ferent turn.  The  cause  of  the  people  would  have  triumphed,  and  we  should  have  establislied  a 
new  order  of  things  in  Europe." 

*  The  higher  nobility  of  Great  Britain  consists  of  2G  dukes,  35  marquises,  217  carls,  G.'>  viscounts, 
191  barons.  Each  f)f  these  takes  the  title  of /ort/ and  is  entitled  by  birth  to  a  seat  in  the  House 
of  Lords,  if  we  except  the  peers  of  Scotland  and  Ireland,  who  have  a  seat  with  the  lords  only  by 
dejiutution,  the  Scotch  peers  choosing  H!  and  the  Irish  28.  There  are,  besides,  six  archbisliops 
and  42  bishops,  who,  by  virtue  of  their  ofiice,  are  styled  lordx  and  have  a  seat  in  the  House  of 
Lords.  The  lower  nobility,  consisting  of  baronets  and  knight.s,  have  no  jirivileges  hut  the  honor 
of  their  title.  Thoy  are  somewhere  between  one  and  two  thousand  in  number.  The  higher  no- 
bility, including  the  dignitaries  of  the  Church,  six  archbishojjs  and  42  bishojis,  in  1813  amount- 
ed to  554  families.  The  total  revenue  of  the  temporal  nobiiiti/,  according  to  Cohiuhoun,  was 
$25,000,000,  which  makes  an  average  of  about  .'|4K,000  a  year  for  each  noble  family.  Accord- 
ing to  the  same  authority,  the  total  revenue  of  the  spintmil  iuriLs  was  $1,200,000,  which  would 
average  .f  25,000  a  year  for  each.  The  English  say  that  these  nobles  are  exceedingly  valuable. 
They  ought  to  be.     They  cost  enough.     See  Eiic.  Am.,  Art.  Great  Britain. 


1789.]  FORMING  THE  CONSTITUTION.  149 

and  but  one  hundred  for  two  chambers.*  It  was  unquestionably  a  calamity 
to  France  that  two  chambers  could  not  have  been  organized.  But  the  in- 
fatuation of  the  nobles  now  for  the  second  time  prevented  this  most  salutary 
check  upon  hasty  legislation. 

The  next  question  to  be  decided  was  the  royal  veto.  AU  were  united  that 
the  laws  should  be  presented  to  the  king  for  his  sanction  or  refusal.  The 
only  question  was  whether  the  veto  should  be  absolute  or  limited.  That 
of  the  King  of  England  is  absolute.  That  of  the  President  of  the  United 
States  is  limited.  All  France  was  agitated  by  this  question.  Here  the 
aristocracy  made  their  last  desperate  stand  and  fought  fiercely.  Many  of 
the  popular  party,  alarmed  in  view  of  the  rapid  progress  of  events,  advocat- 
ed the  absolute  veto.  Its  inconsistency,  however,  with  all  enlightened  prin- 
ciples of  liberty  was  too  apparent  to  be  concealed.  That  the  caprice  of  a 
single  man,  and  he  perhaps  weak  or  dissolute,  should  permanently  thwart 
the  decrees  of  twenty-seven  millions  of  people  appeared  so  absurd  that  the 
whole  nation  rose  against  it. 

The  fate  of  liberty  seemed  to  depend  upon  this  question,  as  the  absolute 
veto  would  enable  the  court,  through  the  king,  to  annul  every  popular 
measure.  The  crowds  in  Paris  became  turbulent  and  menacing.  Threat- 
ening letters  were  sent  to  members  of  the  National  Assembly.  The  Pa- 
risian mob  even  declared  its  determination  to  march  to  Versailles,  and 
drive  from  the  Assembly  those  in  favor  of  the  veto.  The  following  letter, 
addressed  to  the  Bishop  of  Langres,  then  president  of  the  Assembly,  may 
be  presented  as  a  specimen  of  many  with  which  the  hall  was  flooded : 

"  The  patriotic  assembly  of  the  Palais  Eoyal  have  the  honor  to  make  it 
known  to  you,  sir,  that  if  the  aristocratic  faction,  formed  by  some  of  the 
nobility  and  the  clergy,  together  with  one  hundred  and  twenty  ignorant 
and  corrupt  deputies,  continue  to  disturb  the  general  harmony,  and  still  in- 
sist upon  the  absolute  veto,  fifteen  hundred  men  are  ready  to  enlighten 
their  country  seats  and  houses,  and  particularly  your  own."f 

"I  shall  never  forget,"  writes  Dumont,  "my  gomg  to  Paris  one  of  those 
days  with  Mirabeau,  and  the  crowd  of  people  we  found  waiting  for  his  car- 
riage about  Le  Say  the  bookseller's  shop.  They  flung  themselves  before 
him,  entreating  him,  with  tears  in  their  eyes,  not  to  suffer  the  absolute  veto. 

" They  were  in  a  phrensy.  '  Monsieur  le  Comte,'  said  they,  'you  are  the 
people's  father.  You  must  save  us.  You  must  defend  us  against  those  vil- 
lains who  are  bringing  back  despotism.  If  the  king  gets  this  veto,  what  is 
the  use  of  the  National  Assembly  ?     "We  are  all  slaves !     All  is  undone.'  ":|: 

There  was  as  much  ability  in  the  tumultuous  gathering  at  the  Palais 
Eoyal  as  in  the  National  Assembly,  and  more  of  impassioned,  fiery  elo- 
quence. This  disorderly  body  assumed  the  name  of  the  Patriotic  Assem- 
bly, and  was  hourly  increasing  in  influence  and  in  the  boldness  of  its  de- 
mands. Camille  Desmoulins  was  one  of  its  most  popular  speakers.  He 
was  polished,  keen,  witty,  having  the  passions  of  his  ever-varying,  ever- 

*  Michelet.  M.  Rabaud  de  St.  Etienne  says  911  for  one,  89  for  two.  Alison,  without  giving 
his  authority,  states  499  for  one,  87  for  two. 

t  The  French  RevoUitions  from  1789  to  1848,  by  T.  W.  Redhead,  vol.  i.,  p.  59. 
X  Souvenirs  sur  Mirabeau, p.  156. 


150  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XVI. 

excitable  audience  perfectly  at  Lis  command.  lie  could  play  with  their 
emotions  at  bis  pleasure,  and  though  not  an  eanieat  man,  for  jokers  seldom 
are,  be  was  eager  and  reckless.* 

St.  Iluruge  was,  however,  the  great  orator  of  the  populace,  the  Mirabeau 
of  the  Palais  lioyal.  A  marquis  by  birth,  he  had  sutiered  long  imprison- 
ment in  the  Bastille  by  Mre  de  cachet.  Oppression  had  driven  him  mad, 
and  he  was  thoroughly  earnest.  Every  day  he  uttered  the  most  fierce  and 
envenomed  invectives  against  that  aristocratic  power  by  whose  heel  he  had 
been  crushed.  He  was  a  man  of  towering  stature,  impassioned  gesticulation, 
and  with  a  voice  like  the  roar  of  a  bull. 

On  Monday,  August  30th,  there  was  a  report  at  the  Palais  Royal  that 
Mirabeau  was  in  danger  of  arrest.  St.  Huruge  immediately  headed  a  band 
of  fifteen  hundred  men,  and  set  out  for  Versailles  for  his  protection.  It  was  a 
mob  threatening  violence,  and  La  Fayette,  at  the  head  of  a  detachment  of  the 
National  Guard,  stopped  them  and  drove  them  back.  Murmurs  now  began 
to  arise  against  La  Fayette  and  the  National  Guard.  Eumors  were  set  in 
circulation  that  La  Fayette  was  in  league  with  the  aristocrats.  Excitement 
was  again  rapidly  increasing,  as  the  people  feared  that,  after  all,  they  were 
to  be  betrayed  and  again  enslaved. 


LA   FAYBTTE   BKVIEWINO    TUB   NATIONAL  GUARD. 


The  agitated  assembly  at  the  Palais  Royal  sent  a  deputation  to  Versailles 
to  Mounier,  one  of  the  most  influential  and  truly  patriotic  of  the  dc]>uties, 
announcing  to  him  that  twenty  thousand  men  were  ready  to  march  to  Ver- 

*  "  Whftt  will  always  astonish  those  who  are  acquainted  with  the  history  of  other  revolutions 
is,  tlint  in  this  niisenihlc  and  fami>licd  state  of  Paris,  denuded  of  all  authority,  there  were,  on 
the  whole,  hut  very  few  serious  acts  of  violence.  One  word,  one  reasonable  observation,  occa- 
sionally a  jest,  was  sufficient  to  check  them.  On  the  first  days  onh-  subsequent  to  the  14th  of 
July  there  were  instances  of  violence  coniniitted.  The  i>c()]ile,  full  of  the  idea  that  they  were 
betrayed,  sought  for  their  enemies  hap-haznrd,  and  were  near  niakinp  some  cruel  mistakes.  M. 
de  hi  Fayette  interjxjsed  several  times  at  the  critical  moment,  and  was  attended  to.  On  these 
occasionB  M.  do  la  Fayette  was  truly  admirable.  He  fouuil  in  his  heart,  in  his  love  for  order 
and  juBticc,  words  and  hajijjy  sayings  above  his  nature." — MUhekt,  vol.  i.,  p.  227. 


1789.]  FORMING  THE  CONSTITUTION.  151 

sailles  to  drive  the  aristocrats  out  of  tlie  Assembly.  At  tlie  same  time  an 
address  was  received  by  the  president  from  the  citizens  of  Kennes,  declar- 
ing that  those  who  should  vote  for  the  absolute  veto  were  traitors  to  their 
country.  Under  these  circumstances,  the  king  sent  a  message  to  the  Na- 
tional Assembly,  stating  that  he  should  be  satisfied  with  a  limited,  or,  as  it 
was  then  called,  a  suspensive  veto.  In  taking  the  question  the  absolute  veto 
was  rejected,  and  the  suspensive  veto  adopted  by  a  vote  of  673  to  355.  By 
this  measure  the  veto  of  the  king  would  suspend  the  action  of  any  legisla- 
tive enactment  during  two  subsequent  sessions  of  the  Legislature.  If,  after 
this,  the  Legislature  still  persisted,  the  king's  veto  was  overruled  and  the  act 
went  into  effect.  This  was  giving  the  king  much  greater  power  than  the 
President  of  the  United  States  possesses.  A  two-thirds  vote  of  both  houses 
can  immediately  carry  any  measure  against  the  veto  of  the  President.  Free- 
dom of  opinion,  of  worship,  and  of  the  press  were  also  decreed. 

These  questions  being  thus  settled,  it  was  now  voted  that  the  measures 
thus  far  adopted  were  constitutional,  not  legislative ;  and  that,  consequently, 
they  were  to  be  presented  to  the  king,  not  for  his  sanction,  but  for  promul- 
gation. It  was  also  voted  by  acclaim  that  the  crown  should  be  hereditary 
and  the  person  of  the  king  inviolable,  the  ministers  alone  being  responsible 
for  the  measures  of  government.  To  republican  eyes  these  seem  like  mild 
measures  of  reform,  though  they  have  been  most  severely  condemned  by 
the  majority  of  writers  upon  the  French  Eevolution  in  monarchical  Europe. 
If  the  nobles  had  yielded  to  these  reasonable  reforms,  the  horrors  which  en- 
sued might  have  been  avoided.  If  combined  Europe  had  not  risen  in  arms 
against  the  Revolution,  the  regeneration  of  France  might,  perhaps,  have 
been  peacefully  achieved.* 

In  every  nation  there  are  thousands  of  the  ignorant,  degraded,  miserable, 
who  have  nothing  to  lose  and  something  to  hope  from  anarchy.  The  in- 
mates of  the  dens  of  crime  and  infamy,  who  are  only  held  in  check  by  the 
strong  restraints  of  law,  rejoice  in  the  opportunity  to  sack  the  dwellings  of 
the  industrious  and  the  wealthy,  and  to  pour  the  tide  of  ruin  through  the 
homes  of  the  virtuous  and  the  happy.  This  class  of  abandoned  men  and 
women  was  appallingly  increasing.  They  flocked  to  the  city  from  all  parts 
of  the  kingdom,  and  Paris  was  crowded  with  spectres,  emaciate  and  ragged, 
whose  hideous  and  haggard  features  spoke  only  of  vice  and  misery.  Si^yes 
expressed  to  Mirabeau  his  alarm  in  view  of  the  portentous  aspect  of  affairs. 

"  You  have  let  the  bull  loose,"  Mirabeau  replied,  "  and  now  you  complain 
that  he  butts  with  his  horns."f 

Much  has  been  said  respecting  the  motives  which  influenced  Mirabeau. 

*  "I  hear  it  sometimes  said  that  the  French  should  hare  contented  themselves  with  laying 
down  principles  for  their  own  particular  state,  without  spreading  abroad  those  principles  among 
other  nations.  But  is  it  really  their  fault  if  their  principles  are  so  general  as  to  be  adapted  to 
all  men,  of  all  times,  and  of  all  countries  ?  Nay,  is  it  not  a  proof  of  the  excellence  of  their  prin- 
ciples, which  depend  neither  upon  ages,  nor  on  prejudices,  nor  on  climates  ?  Have  they  invent- 
ed them  maliciously,  and  in  order  to  impose  on  kings  and  on  the  great  ?  And  is  there  any  man 
so  silly  as  to  scruple  to  rebuild  his  shattered  dwelling,  because  others  might  be  tempted  to  re- 
edify  theirs  ?  If  the  French  language  is  understood  through  all  Europe,  are  the  French  to  blame  ? 
Ought  they,  through  fear  of  being  listened  to  and  imitated,  to  observe  a  strict  silence,  or  speak  a 
language  different  from  their  own?" — History  of  the  Revolutions  of  France,  ly  M.  Rabaud  de  St. 
Etienne,  p.  180.  t  Dumont,  vol.  i.,  p.  66. 


152  TUE  FKENCII  REVOLUTION.  [ClIAP.  XVI. 

Whatever  his  motives  may  have  been,  his  conduct  was  consistent.  All  his 
words  and  actions  were  in  fiivor  of  liberty  sustained  by  strong  law.  He 
wished  for  the  overthrow  of  aristocratic  insolence  and  feudal  oppression, 
from  which  he  had  so  severely  suffered.  lie  wished  to  preserve  the  mo- 
narchical form  of  government,  and  to  establish  a  constitution  which  should 
secure  to  all  the  citizens  equality  of  rights.* 

Feudality  was  now  destroyed,  and  a  free  constitution  adopted.  Still, 
business  was  stagnant,  the  poor  destitute  of  employment  and  in  a  state  of 
starvation.  As  an  act  of  charity,  seventeen  thousand  men  were  employed 
by  the  municipality  of  Paris  digging  on  the  heights  of  Montmartre  at  twen- 
ty sous  a  day.  The  suffering  was  so  great  that  the  office  ot  the  municii^ality 
was  crowded  with  tradesmen  and  merchants  imploring  employment  on  these 
terms.  "I  used  to  see,"  writes  the  ma3'or,  Bailly,  "good  tradespeople,  mer- 
cers and  goldsmiths,  who  prayed  to  be  admitted  among  the  beggars  employ- 
ed at  Montmartre  in  digging  the  ground.     Judge  what  I  suffered." 

The  city  government  sunk  two  thousand  dollars  a  day  in  selling  bread  to 
the  poor  at  less  than  cost ;  and  yet  there  were  emissaries  of  the  court  buying 
up  this  bread  and  destroying  it  to  increase  the  public  distress.f  On  the 
19th  day  of  August  the  city  of  Paris  contained  food  sufficient  but  for  a  sin- 
gle day.  Bailly  and  La  Fayette  were  in  an  agony  of  solicitude.  So  great 
was  the  dismay  in  Paris,  that  all  the  rich  were  leaving.  Sixty  thousand 
passports  were  signed  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville  in  three  months.:]: 

Armed  bands  were  exploring  the  country  to  purchase  food  wherever  it 
could  be  found,  and  convey  it  to  the  city.  Six  hundred  of  the  National 
Guard  were  stationed  by  day  and  by  night  to  protect  the  corn-market  from 
attack.  It  is  surprising  that  when  the  populace  were  in  such  distress  so 
few  acts  of  violence  should  have  been  committed.  § 

*  "The  particulars  of  Mirabeau's  conduct  are  not  yet  thoroughly  known,  but  they  are  gQon 
likely  to  be.  I  have  had  in  my  hands  several  important  documents,  and  especially  a  paper  WTit- 
ten  in  the  form  of  a  profession  of  faith,  which  constituted  his  secret  treaty  with  the  court.  I  am 
not  allowed  to  pive  the  public  any  of  these  documents,  or  to  mention  the  names  of  the  holders. 
I  can  only  affirm  what  the  future  will  sufficiently  demonstrate,  when  all  these  papers  shall  have 
been  published. 

"What  I  am  able  to  assert  with  sincerity  is,  that  Mirabcau  never  had  any  hand  in  the  sup- 
posed plots  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans.  Mirabeau  left  Provence  with  a  sinple  object,  that  of  com- 
bating arbitrary  power,  by  which  he  had  suffered,  and  which  his  reason  as  well  as  his  sentiments 
taught  him  to  consider  as  detestable.  In  his  manners  there  was  great  familiarity,  which  origi- 
nated in  a  feeling  of  liis  strength.  Hence  it  was  that  he  was  frequently  supposed  to  be  the  friend 
and  accomplice  of  many  persons  with  whom  he  had  no  common  interest.  I  have  said,  and  I  re- 
peat it,  he  had  no  party.  Mirabeau  remained  poor  till  his  connection  with  the  court.  lie  then 
watched  all  parties,  strove  to  make  them  explain  themselves,  and  was  too  sensible  of  his  own  im- 
portance to  i)lcdgc  himself  liglitly."—//j.s/.  of  the  Fr.  Rev.,  by  M.  A.  Thiers,  vol.  i.,  p.  94. 

t  Ilistoire  de  la  Rcvdlution  Franc^aise,  par  Villiaumc',  p.  54. 

J  Revolutions  de  Paris,  1. 11,  No.  9,  p.  8. 

i)  "Occasionally  loads  of  flour  were  seized  and  detained  on  their  passage  by  the  neighboring 
localities  whoso  wants  were  i)ressing.  Versnilles  and  Paris  shared  together.  But  Versailles 
kept,  so  it  was  said,  the  finest  i)art,  and  made  a  sujK'rior  bread.  This  was  a  great  cause  of 
jealousy.  One  day,  when  the  jieojjlc  of  Versailles  had  been  so  imprudent  as  to  turn  aside  for 
themselves  a  snpj)ly  intended  fur  the  Parisians,  Bailly,  the  honest  and  respectful  Bailly,  wrote  to 
M.  Nccker  that,  if  the  flour  were  not  restored,  thirty  thousand  men  would  go  and  fetch  it  on  the 
morrow.  Fear  made  him  bold.  It  often  bajjpencd  at  niidniglit  that  he  liad  but  half  tlie  flour 
necessary  for  tlic  morning  market." — Michelet,  p.  2ol. 


1789.] 


FORMING  THE  CONSTITUTION. 


153 


The  kind  heart  of  the  king  was  afFectecl  by  this  misery.  He  sent  nearly 
all  his  plate  to  be  melted  and  coined  at  the  mint  for  the  relief  of  the  poor. 
This  noble  example  inspired  others.  General  enthusiasm  was  aroused,  and 
the  hall  of  the  National  Assembly  was  crowded  with  the  charitable  bringing 
voluntary  contributions  for  the  relief  of  the  poor.  Rich  men  sent  in  their 
plate,  patriotic  ladies  presented  their  caskets  of  jewelry,  and  the  wives  of 
tradesmen,  artists,  and  mechanics  brought  the  marriage  gifts  which  they  had 
received  and  the  ornaments  which  embellished  their  dwellings.  Farmers 
sent  in  bags  of  corn,  and  even  poor  women  and  children  offered  their  mites. 
A  school-boy  came  with  a  few  pieces  of  gold  which  his  parents  had  sent  to 
him  for  spending-money.  This  overflowing  of  charity  presented  a  touching 
display  of  the  characteristic  magnanimity  and  impulsiveness  of  the  French 
people.* 


I  I  III,     ■'^.h  -^Si.-^^- 


11 


4t' 


PATBIOTIO   CONTEIEDTIONS. 


But  private  charity,  however  profuse,  is  quite  inadequate  to  the  wants  of 
a  nation.     These  sums  were  soon  expended,  and  still  the  unemployed  poor 


*  Even  the  courtesans  came  for-ward  with  their  contributions.  The  following  letter  was  re- 
ceived by  the  National  Assembly,  accompanied  by  a  purse  of  gold : 

"  Gentlemen  !  I  have  a  heart  to  love.  I  have  amassed  some  property  in  loving.  I  place  it 
in  your  hands,  a  homage  to  the  country.  May  my  example  be  imitated  by  my  companions  of 
all  ranks." — Hist,  des  Montagnards,  par  Alphonse  Esquiros,  p.  21. 


154:  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.         [ChaP.  XVI. 

crawled  fasting  and  emaciated  about  the  streets.  Necker's  plans  for  loans 
were  frustrated.  No  one  would  lend.  To  whom  should  he  lend?  The 
old  r(?gime  was  dying ;  the  new  not  yet  bom.  In  this  terrible  emergency 
Necker  proposed  the  desperate  measure  of  imposing  a  tax  of  one  quarter  of 
every  man's  income,  declaring  that  there  was  no  other  refuge  from  bank- 
ruptcy. The  interest  upon  the  public  debt  could  no  longer  be  paid,  the 
wages  of  the  soldiers  were  in  arrears,  and  the  treasury  utterly  empty.  The 
proposal  frightened  the  Assembly,  but  Mirabeau  ascended  the  tribune,  and 
in  one  of  his  most  impassioned  appeals  carried  the  measure  by  acclamation.* 
The  distracted  state  of  the  kingdom,  however,  prevented  the  act  thus  enthu- 
siastically adopted  from  being  carried  into  efiect.f 

Thomas  Jefferson  was  at  this  time,  as  we  have  before  mentioned,  the 
American  minister  in  Paris,  and  was  constantly  consulted  by  the  leaders  of 
the  Eevolution.     In  his  memoirs,  speaking  of  these  events,  he  writes, 

"  The  first  question,  whether  there  should  be  a  king,  met  with  no  opposi- 
tion, and  it  was  readily  agreed  that  the  government  of  France  should  be  mo- 
narchical and  hereditary. 

"  Shall  the  king  have  a  negative  on  the  laws  ?  Shall  that  negative  be  ab- 
solute, or  suspensive  only?  Shall  there  be  two  chambers  of  legislation,  or 
one  only  ?  If  two,  shall  one  of  them  be  hereditary,  or  for  life,  or  for  a  fixed 
teim ;  and  named  by  the  king  or  elected  by  the  people  ? 

"  These  questions  found  strong  differences  of  opinion,  and  produced  re- 
pulsive combinations  among  the  patriots.  The  aristocracy  was  cemented 
by  a  common  principle  of  preserving  the  ancient  regime,  or  whatever  should 
be  nearest  to  it.  Making  this  their  polar  star,  they  moved  in  phalanx,  gave 
preponderance  on  every  question  to  the  minorities  of  the  patriots,  and  al- 
ways to  those  who  advocated  the  least  change.  The  features  of  the  new 
constitution  were  thus  assuming  a  fearful  aspect,  and  great  alarm  was  pro- 
duced among  the  honest  patriots  by  these  dissensions  in  their  ranks. 

"  In  this  uneasy  state  of  things  I  received  one  day  a  note  from  the  'Mar- 
quis  de  la  Fayette,  informing  me  that  he  should  bring  a  party  of  six  or 
eight  friends  to  ask  a  dinner  of  me  the  next  day.  I  assured  him  of  their 
welcome.  When  they  arrived,  they  were  La  Fayette  himself,  Dupont,  Bar- 
nave,  Alexander  Lameth,  Blacon,  Mounier,  Maubourg,  and  Dagout.  These 
were  leading  patriots  of  honest  but  differing  opinions,  sensible  of  the  neces- 
sity of  effecting  a  coalition  by  mutual  sacrifices ;  knowing  each  other,  and 
not  afraid  therefore  to  unbosom  themselves  mutually.  This  last  was  a  ma- 
terial principle  in  the  selection.  With  this  view  the  marquis  had  invited 
the  conference,  and  had  fixed  the  time  and  place,  inadvertently  as  to  the 
embarrassment  under  which  he  might  j^lace  me. 

"  The  cloth  being  removed  and  wine  set  on  the  table,  after  the  American 
manner,  the  marquis  introduced  the  objects  of  the  conference  by  summarily 
reminding  them  of  the  state  of  things  in  the  Assembly,  the  coui'se  which  the 
prinei})les  of  the  Constitution  were  taking,  and  the  inevitable  result,  unless 
checked  by  more  concord  among  the  j)atriots  themselves.  He  observed  that 
though  he  also  had  his  opinion,  he  was  ready  to  sacrifice  it  to  that  of  his 
brethron  of  the  same  cause;  but  that  a  common  opinion  nmst  now  be  form- 
«  M.  Rabaud  do  St.  Etiennc,  vol.  i.,  89.  t  Alison. 


1789.]  THE  ROYAL  FAMILY  CAKRIED  TO  PARIS.  155 

ed,  or  the  aristocracy  would  carry  every  thing,  and  that,  whatever  they 
should  now  agree  on,  he,  at  the  head  of  the  national  force,  would  maintain. 

"  The  discussions  began  at  the  hour  of  four,  and  were  continued  till  ten 
o'clock  in  the  evening,  during  which  time  I  was  a  silent  witness  to  a  cool- 
ness and  candor  of  argument  unusual  in  the  conflicts  of  political  opinion ;  to 
a  logical  reasoning  and  chaste  eloquence  disfigured  by  no  gaudy  tinsel  of 
rhetoric  or  declamation,  and  truly  worthy  of  being  placed  in  parallel  with 
the  finest  dialogues  of  antiquity,  as  handed  to  us  by  Plato,  by  Xenophon,  and 
Cicero.  The  result  was  that  the  king  should  have  a  suspensive  veto  on  the 
laws,  that  the  Legislature  should  be  composed  of  a  single  body  only,  and 
that  to  be  chosen  by  the  people.  This  concordat  decided  the  fate  of  the 
Constitution.  The  patriots  all  rallied  to  the  principles  thus  settled,  carried 
every  question  agreeably  to  them,  and  reduced  the  aristocracy  to  insignifi- 
cance and  impotence."* 


CHAPTER  XYII. 

THE   ROYAL   FAMILY   CARRIED   TO   PARIS. 

Waning  Popularity  of  La  Fayette. — The  King  contemplates  Flight. — Letter  of  Admiral  d'Estaing. 
— The  Flanders  Regiment  called  to  Versailles. — Fete  in  the  Ball-room  at  Versailles. — Insur- 
rection of  the  Women ;  their  March  to  Versailles. — Horrors  of  the  Night  of  October  5th. — The 
Eoyal  Family  conveyed  to  Paris. 

The  press  now  began  to  assail  Bailly  and  La  Fayette  as  in  league  with 
the  aristocrats.  The  Assembly  at  the  Palais  Eoyal  was  becoming  para- 
mount, a  terrific  power,  threatening  ruin  to  all  who  should  advocate  meas- 
ures of  moderation.  The  most  violent  harangues  roused  the  populace,  and 
it  was  evident  that  they  could  be  easily  turned  by  their  leaders  into  any 
path  of  destruction.  Threatening  letters  flooded  the  ISTational  Assembly, 
and  one  of  great  ferocity  was  signed  by  St.  Huruge.  Though  he  declared 
it  a  forgery,  he  was  arrested  and  imprisoned.  The  municipal  authority  also 
forbade  farther  meetings  in  the  Palais  Royal,  and  La  Fayette,  with  the  Na- 
tional Guard,  dispersed  the  gatherings. 

The  king  now  seriously  contemplated  flight,  that,  at  a  safe  distance  from 
Paris  and  suriounded  by  chosen  troops,  he  might  dictate  terms  to  his  peo- 
ple, or,  if  they  refused,  prepare,  by  the  aid  of  foreign  arms,  for  war.  About 
one  hundred  and  eighty  miles  northeast  of  Paris,  on  the  frontiers  of  France, 
was  the  city  of  Metz.     The  city  contained  about  fifty  thousand  inhabitants, 

*  Mounier,  who  was  strongly  in  favor  of  two  chambers  and  an  absolute  veto,  in  his  Report  to 
his  Constituents,  writes,  in  reference  to  some  private  and  friendly  conferences  held  at  this  time : 

"  These  conferences,  twice  renewed,  were  unsuccessful.  They  were  recommenced  at  the  house 
of  an  American  known  for  his  abilities  and  his  virtues,  who  had  both  the  experience  and  the 
theory  of  the  institutions  proper  for  maintaining  liberty.  He  gave  an  opinion  in  favor  of  my 
principles." 

This  American  was  unquestionably  Thomas  Jefferson.  He  saw  the  peril  with  which  the  Rev- 
olution was  menaced,  and  that  freedom  needed  as  strong  a  guard  against  the  blind  impulses  of 
the  populace  as  against  the  encroachments  of  the  court.  Two  houses  might  perhaps  have  checked 
the  rush  to  ruin,  but  could  hardly  have  averted  the  disaster.  For  ages  the  nobles  had  been 
"  sowing  the  wind."  It  was  the  decree  of  God  that  they  should  "  reap  the  whirlwind."  "  He 
visiteth  the  iniquities  of  the  fathers  upon  the  children." 


156  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XVII. 

and  its  fortifications,  constructed  by  Vauban,  were  of  the  most  extensive  and 
formidable  kind.  The  Marquis  de  Bouille,  one  of  the  most  devoted  serv- 
ants of  the  king,  and  subsequently  one  of  the  most  active  agents  in  urging 
the  foreign  powers  to  march  against  France,  commanded,  in  garrison  there, 
thirty  thousand  picked  troops,  resolute  lioyalists,  and  who  had  been  taught 
to  regard  the  popular  movement  with  contempt. 

The  plan  was  well  matured  for  the  king  to  escape  to  Metz.  There  he  was 
to  be  joined  by  the  court,  the  nobles  with  all  their  retainers,  the  ancient  par- 
liaments of  the  provinces,  all  composed  of  the  aristocratic  class,  and  by  all 
the  soldiers  whom  the  Koyalist  ofl&cers  could  induce  to  follow  them  to  that 
rendezvous.  Then,  by  the  employment  of  all  the  energies  of  fire  and  blood, 
France  was  to  be  brought  back  into  subjection  to  the  old  regime. 

La  Fayette  knew  of  this  plan,  and  yet  he  did  not  dare  to  divulge  it  to  the 
people,  for  he  knew  that  it  would  provoke  a  fierce  and  terrible  outbreak. 
He  saw  the  peril  in  which  the  royal  family  was  involved,  and  he  wished  for 
their  protection.  He  saw  the  doom  with  which  the  liberties  of  France  were 
menaced,  and  the  liberty  for  which  he  was  struggling  was  dearer  to  him 
than  life.  If  the  king  had  been  either  a  merciless  despot  or  a  reliable  friend 
of  liberty,  then  would  La  Fayette's  path  of  duty  have  been  plain.  But  the 
king  was  an  amiable,  kindly -intentioned,  weak-minded,  vacillating  man,  quite 
the  tool  of  the  inexorable  court. 

It  is  difficult  to  conceive  of  a  situation  more  embarrassing  than  that  in 
which  La  Fayette  was  now  placed.  He  was  at  the  head  of  the  National 
Guard  and  was  informed  of  all  the  plots  of  the  court.  He  wished  to  be 
faithful  to  his  sovereign,  and  wished  also  to  be  true  to  his  country.  With- 
out the  connivance,  or  at  least  secret  assent  of  La  Fayette,  it  was  hardly  pos- 
sible for  the  king  to  escape. 

The  old  admiral  D'Estaing  was  commander  of  the  National  Guard  at 
Versailles.  He  was  a  man  of  noble  birth,  of  magnanimous  character,  and, 
though  with  true  patriotism  he  espoused  the  popular  cause,  he  was,  like  La 
Fayette,  in  favor  of  a  monarchy,  and  was  sincerely  friendly  to  the  king. 
On  the  13th  of  September  he  dined  with  La  Fayette  at  Paris.  Here  the 
marquis  unfolded  to  the  amazed  admiral  the  terrible  secret  in  all  its  details ; 
that  the  Baron  Breteuil,  one  of  the  most  implacable  enemies  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, was  arranging  with  the  Austrian  embassador  for  the  co-operation  of 
Austria ;  that  eighteen  regiments  had  already  taken  the  oath  of  fidelity  to 
the  court ;  that  the  Royalists,  in  large  numbers,  were  already  congregating 
at  Metz ;  that  the  nobles  and  the  clergy  had  combined  in  raising  funds,  so 
that  fifteen  hundred  thousand  francs  ($300,000)  a  month  were  secured ;  that 
measures  were  already  adopted  to  besiege  Paris,  cut  off  all  supplies,  and 
starve  the  city  into  subjection ;  and  that  more  than  sixty  thousand  of  the 
clergy  and  nobility  were  pledged  to  rally  around  the  king. 

D'P^staing  was  appalled  by  the  tidings.  He  knew  that  if  the  populace 
were  informed  of  the  conspiracy  it  would  rouse  them  to  phrcnsy,  that  no 
earthly  power  could  ]irotcct  the  royal  family  from  their  fury,  and  that  in- 
stantly the  fiercest  civil  war  woiild  blaze  from  the  Rhine  to  the  Pyrenees. 
Aware  (^f  the  imbecility  of  the  king,  and  that  the  queen  was  the  author  of 
every  vigorous  measure,  he  immediately  addressed  a  very  earnest  letter  to 
her.     lie  wrote  as  follows  in  a  letter  long,  earnest,  and  imploring: 


1789.]  THE  KOYAL  FAMILY  CARRIED  TO  PARIS.  157 

"  It  is  necessary — my  duty  and  my  loyalty  require  it — that  I  sliould  lay  at 
the  feet  of  the  queen  the  account  of  the  visit  which  I  have  paid  to  Paris.  I 
am  praised  for  sleeping  soundly  the  night  before  an  assault  or  a  naval  en- 
gagement. I  venture  to  assert  that  I  am  not  timorous  in  civil  matters,  but 
I  must  confess  to  your  majesty  that  I  did  not  close  my  eyes  all  night. 

"I  was  told — and,  gracious  heaven!  what  would  be  the  consequence  if 
this  were  circulated  among  the  people — I  was  told  that  the  king  was  to  be 
carried  off  to  Metz.  La  Fayette  told  me  so  in  a  whisper  at  dinner.  I  trem- 
bled lest  a  single  domestic  should  overhear  him.  I  observed  to  him  that  a 
word  from  his  lips  might  become  the  signal  of  death.  I  implore  your  maj- 
esty to  grant  me  an  audience  some  day  this  week."* 

Such  a  secret  could  not  long  be  kept.  It  soon  began  to  be  openly  spoken 
of  in  the  streets  as  a  suspicion,  a  rumor.  Under  pretense  of  protecting  the 
National  Assembly  from  any  violence  by  the  mob  from  Paris,  the  king  called 
a  regiment  to  Versailles  from  Flanders.  This  was  a  regiment  in  whose  ofifi.- 
cers  and  soldiers  he  could  rely,  and  which  was  to  aid  him  in  his  flight.  The 
troops  marched  into  the  city  with  an  imposing  array  of  artillery  and  infant- 
ry, exciting  increasing  suspicion,  and  were  assembled  as  a  guard  around  the 
palace. 

It  was  on  the  23d  of  September  that  this  Flanders  regiment  entered  Yer- 
sailles,  and  were  stationed  around  the  regal  chateau,  thus  doubling  the  body- 
guard of  the  king.  It  was  also  observed  that  a  very  unusual  number  of  offi- 
cers crowded  the  streets  of  Versailles,  estimated  at  from  a  thousand  to  twelve 
hundred.f  A  dinner  was  given  to  these  officers  on  the  1st  of  October,  in 
the  hall  of  the  Opera  at  the  palace.  No  expense  was  spared  to  add  splendor 
to  the  fete,  to  which  all  were  invited  who  could  probably  be  led  to  co-operate 
with  the  court.  Wine  flowed  freely,  and,  deep  in  the  hours  of  the  night, 
when  all  heads  were  delirious,  the  king  and  queen,  with  the  young  dauphin, 
entered  the  banqueting-hall.  They  were  received  with  almost  phrensied  ac- 
claim. The  boxes  of  the  Opera  were  thronged  with  ladies  of  the  court,  add- 
ing to  the  enthusiasm.  The  king,  the  queen,  the  dauphin,  were  toasted  with 
delirious  shouts.  "When  some  one  proposed  "  the  nation,"  the  toast  was 
scornfully  rejected.  As  the  royal  family  made  the  tour  of  the  tables,  the 
band  struck  up  the  air,  "O  Eichard,  O  my  king,  the  world  is  all  forsaking 
thee."  The  officers  leaped  upon  the  chairs  and  the  tables,  drew  their  swords, 
and  vowed  eternal  fidelity  to  the  king.  And  now  ensued  a  scene  which  no 
language  can  describe.  The  officers  clambered  into  the  boxes,  and  received 
the  cordial  greetings  of  the  ladies ;  the  revolutionary  movement  was  cursed 
intensely ;  the  tricolored  cockade,  the  badge  of  popular  rights,  was  trampled 
under  foot,  and  the  white  cockade,  the  emblem  of  Bourbon  power,  was  ac- 
cejDted  in  its  stead  from  the  hands  of  the  ladies.  The  next  day  there  was 
another  similar  entertainment  in  the  palace,  to  which  a  still  larger  number 
of  guests  were  invited,  and  the  convivialities  were  still  more  exciting  and  vi- 
olent. The  courtiers,  with  that  fatuity  which  ever  marked  their  conduct, 
were  now  so  encouraged,  that  they  began  with  insolent  menaces  to  manifest 
their  exultation. 

*  Brouillon  :  le  Lettre  de  M.  d'Estaing  a  la  Reine  (in  Histoire  Parlementaire,  vol.  iii.,  p.  24). 
t  "Le  ministre  de  la  guerre  multiplia  les  conge's  de  semestre,  afin  d' avoir  un  corps  de  volon- 
taires  royaux,  compose'  de  douze  cent  cents  officiers." — Villiaume,  p.  34. 


158 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


[Chap.  XVIL 


IXbXlVAL   IN    THE   IJALL-l 


JM   AT   VKBbAlI.LES,  OCT.  1, 


The  tidings  of  these /e^es  spread  rapidly  through  Versailles  and  Paris,  ex- 
citing intense  indignation.  The  court  was  feasting;  the  people  starving. 
Versailles  was  filled  with  rejoicing ;  Paris  with  mourning.  Despotism  was 
exulting  in  its  anticipated  triumph,  while  the  nation  was  threatened  with  the 
loss  of  its  newl3--acquircd  rights.  The  king  had  thus  for  delayed  giving  his 
assent  to  the  Constitution.  Disquietude  pervaded  the  National  Assembly, 
and  confused  murmurs  filled  the  thoroughfares  of  Paris — terrible  rumors  of 
the  approaching  war,  of  the  league  with  the  German  princes,  of  the  increas- 
ing famine,  and  the  tlircatened  blockade  of  Paris.  "  VTe  must  bring  the  king 
to  Paris,"  all  said,  "  or  the  court  will  carry  him  off,  and  war  will  immediately 
be  commenced." 

The  morning  of  the  5th  of  October  dawned,  dark,  cold,  and  stormy.  A 
dismal  rain  flooded  the  streets.  There  were  thousands  in  Paris  that  morn- 
ing who  had  eaten  nothing  for  thirty  hours.*    The  women,  in  particular,  of 

♦  Monitcur,  vol.  i.,  p.  fiCR.     Histoiro  dc  Dciix  Amis  de  la  Libcrte,  t.  iii. 


1789.] 


THE  ROYAL  FAMILY  CARRIED  TO  PARIS. 


159 


the  humbler  class,  were  in  an  awful  state  of  destitution  and  misery.  The 
populace  of  Paris  were  actually  starving.  An  energetic  woman,  half  dehri- 
ous  with  woe,  seized  a  drum,  and  strode  through  the  streets  beating  it  vio- 
lently, occasionally  shrieking,  "  Bread !  bread !"  She  soon  collected  a  crowd 
of  women,  which  rapidly  increased  from  a  few  hundred  to  seven  or  eight 
thousand.  The  men  gazed  with  wonder  upon  this  strange  apparition,  such 
as  earth  had,  perhaps,  never  seen  before.  Like  a  swelling  inundation  the 
living  flood  rolled  through  the  streets,  and  soon  the  cry  was  heard,  "  To  Yer- 
sailles !"  As  by  a  common  instinct,  the  tumultuous  mass  rushed  along  by 
the  side  of  the  Tuileries  and  through  the  Elysian  Fields  toward  Versailles. 
A  few  of  the  more  fierce  and  brutal  of  the  women  had  guns  or  pistols. 
Chancing  to  find  a  couple  of  cannon,  they  seized  them,  and  also  horses  to 
drag  the  ponderous  engines,  upon  which  female  furies  placed  themselves 
astride,  singing  revolutionary  songs. 


TUE    WOMEN    OP   PARIS    MAKCHING    TO   VEESAILLES. 


La  Fayette  gazed  appalled  upon  the  strange  phenomenon.  The  troops  of 
the  National  Guard  refused  to  arrest  their  course,  declaring  that  they  could 
not  resist  starving  women,  who  were  going  to  implore  bread  of  their  king. 
La  Fayette  was  powerless.  He  had  under  arms  that  morning  thirty-five 
thousand  troops,  cavalry,  infantry,  and  artillery.  He  could  only  follow  the 
women,  to  watch  the  opening  of  events.  Behind  these  troops  advancing  in 
all  the  glittering  panoply  of  war,  followed  a  straggling  mass  of,  no  one  can 
tell  how  many  thousands  of  the  populace  of  Paris,  of  all  classes,  characters, 
conditions.    The  city  seemed  emptied  of  its  inhabitants,  as  the  road  to  Yer- 


160  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XVII. 

sallies,  ten  or  twelve  miles  in  length,  was  filled  with  the  tumultuous  multi- 
tude. No  one,  apparently,  had  any  definite  object,  but  each  one  was  going 
to  see  what  the  others  would  do. 

Couriers  were  sent  forward  to  warn  the  king  and  queen  of  the  impending 
peril.  The  good-natured,  silly  king  had  gone  to  Meudon  to  amuse  hunself 
in  chasing  hares.  Nothing  can  more  conclusively  show  his  utter  incapacity 
to  govern  a  great  kingdom,  than  that  he  should  have  been  so  employed  at 
such  an  hour.  The  king  was  sent  for,  and  speedily  returned  to  Versailles. 
Marie  Antoinette  had  all  the  energy  and  heroism  of  her  mother,  Maria 
Theresa.  When  entreated  immediately  to  secure  her  escape  with  her  two 
children,  she  replied, 

"Nothing  shall  induce  me  to  be  separated  from  my  husband.  I  know 
that  they  seek  my  life ;  but  I  am  the  daughter  of  Maria  Theresa,  and  have 
learned  not  to  fear  death." 

The  king  was  entreated  to  escape,  but  he  was  fearful  that  his  flight  might 
embolden  the  Assembly  to  declare  the  throne  vacant,  and  to  place  the  crown 
upon  the  head  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  who  had,  with  that  object  probably 
in  view,  vociferously  espoused  the  popular  cause.  From  the  windows  of 
Versailles  the  royal  family  soon  descried  the  vast  multitude  plodding  along 
through  the  mud  and  the  rain  as  they  approached  Versailles.  It  is  said 
that  there  were  some  men  in  the  mob,  disguised  as  women,  who  gave  im- 
pulse and  direction  to  the  mass.  A  man  by  the  name  of  Maillard,  of  gi- 
gantic stature,  and  possessed  of  wonderful  tact,  succeeded  in  obtaining  the 
post  of  leader.  In  this  alarming  state  of  affairs,  the  king  sent  to  the  Assem- 
bly a  partial  acceptance  of  the  Constitution.  As  the  Assembly  were  dis- 
cussing this  question,  the  women  arrived  at  the  hall.  Maillard  entered,  and 
the  women  crowded  after  him.  Eespectfull}^,  but  earnestly,  on  behalf  of 
the  women,  he  represented  the  starving  condition  of  Paris,  and  complained 
of  the  insult  which  the  nation  had  received  in  the  fete  at  the  palace. 

It  was  now  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  The  rain  was  still  falling.  A 
dark,  stormy  night  was  at  hand,  and  the  streets  of  Versailles  were  filled 
with  countless  thousands  of  the  most  desperate  men  and  women,  utterly 
destitute  of  shelter.  The  Assembly,  in  alarm,  requested  their  president, 
M.  Mounier,  to  go  to  the  palace  and  petition  for  fresh  measures  of  relief. 
M.  Mounier  was  compelled  to  allow  twelve  women  to  accompany  him.  The 
king  received  them  kindly.  The  women  had  adroitly  selected,  as  the  leader 
of  their  deputation,  a  very  beautiful  young  flower-girl,  but  seventeen  years 
of  age,  of  remarkably  graceful  form  and  lovely  features.  The  girl,  over- 
come by  her  sensations,  endeavored  in  vain  to  speak,  and  fainted.  The 
king  took  her  in  his  arms,  embraced  her  as  if  she  had  been  his  child,  and 
was  so  i)aternal  that  he  completely  won  the  hearts  of  all  the  women.  They 
left  the  ])alacc  with  such  enthusiastic  accounts  of  the  goodness  of  the  king, 
that  the  Amazons  on  the  outside  accused  them  of  having  been  bribed,  and, 
in  their  rage,  were  ready  to  tear  them  in  pieces.  The  poor  flower-girl 
would  have  been  hanged  with  garters  to  a  lamp-post  had  not  the  soldiers 
rescued  her. 

Tlu!  king  now  summoned  a  council,  which  continued  in  session  until  ten 
o'clock.     Still,  by  some  uni)ardonable  neglect,  no  measures  were  adopted  to 


1789.]  THE  ROYAL  FAMILY  CARRIED  TO  PARIS.  161 

provide  for  tlie  wants  of  the  famished  mob.  It  was  nearly  seven  o'clock  in 
the  evening  before  La  Fayette  arrived  with  the  National  Guard.*  The 
soldiers  of  the  guard,  intelligent  citizens,  were  only  to  be  controlled  by  the 
'personal  influence  of  their  general.  Authority  is  only  established  by  time 
and  consolidated  institutions.  La  Fayette  hastened  to  the  palace  to  assure 
the  royal  family  that  every  thing  in  his  power  should  be  done  to  secure 
their  safety.  The  king,  however,  would  not  intrust  the  guard  of  the  palace 
to  La  Fayette,  as  he  thought  he  could  place  more  reliance  in  the  Flanders 
regiment,  the  Swiss  mercenaries,  and  his  own  Life-Guard,  than  in  the  Na- 
tional Guard,  who  were  all  devoted  to  the  popular  cause. 

Li  the  confusion  of  those  dreadful  hours,  all  the  entrances  to  the  palace 
had  not  been  defended.  La  Fayette,  however,  stationed  an  effectual  guard 
at  all  the  outposts  which  had  been  assigned  to  him.  Through  all  the  hours 
of  the  night,  until  five  o'clock  in  the  morning.  La  Fayette  was  sleeplessly 
engaged  sending  out  patrols  and  watching  over  the  public  peace.  Then, 
finding  all  tranquil,  he  threw  himself  upon  a  sofa  for  rest,  having  been  con- 
stantly and  anxiously  employed  for  the  last  twenty -four  hours.  Groups  of 
shivering,  famished  people  were  gathered  around  large  fires,  which  they  had 
built  in  the  streets,  and  in  one  place  they  were  devouring  the  half-roasted 
flesh  of  a  horse  which  they  had  killed.  The  queen,  worn  out  with  sleep- 
lessness, had  retired  to  her  chamber.  The  king  had  also  gone  to  his  cham- 
ber, which  was  connected  with  that  of  the  queen  by  a  hall,  through  which 
they  could  mutually  pass.  Two  soldiers  guarded  the  door  of  the  queen's 
chamber.  Some  of  the  mob,  prowling  around  the  palace,  found  a  gate  un- 
gTiarded,  and,  entering  the  palace  without  any  obstruction,  ascended  the 
stairs,  and,  pressing  blindly  on,  came  to  the  door  of  the  queen's  apartment. 
The  soldiers  heroically  resisted  them,  and  shouted  to  others  to  save  the 
queen.  She  heard  the  cry,  and,  springing  from  her  bed,  rushed  in  her 
night-clothes  to  the  king's  room.  The  brigands  pushed  resolutely  forward, 
and  found  the  royal  bed  forsaken.  A  number  of  the  Life-Guards  hastened 
to  the  spot,  and  arrested  their  farther  progress ;  and  the  soldiers  of  La  Fay- 
ette, who  had  been  stationed  at  a  little  distance,  hearing  the  tumult,  hastened 
to  their  aid. 

The  noise  roused  the  mob,  and  a  conflict  immediately  ensued  between 
the  soldiers  and  the  phrensied  multitude.  La  Fayette,  who  had  not  yet  fallen 
asleep,  sprung  from  his  couch,  and,  hastening  to  the  palace,  found  several 
of  the  king's  troops  on  the  point  of  being  slaughtered.  One  of  the  brigands 
aimed  a  musket  at  La  Fayette,  but  the  mob  seized  him  and  dashed  out  his 
brains  upon  the  pavement.  The  Life-Guards  and  the  Grenadiers  of  La  Fay- 
ette soon  cleared  the  palace ;  and  the  whole  court  acknowledged  that  they 
were  indebted  to  La  Fayette  for  their  lives.  Madame  Adelaide,  the  queen's 
aunt,  threw  her  arms  around  him,  exclaiming  "General,  you  have  saved  us."f 

*  Thiers,  vol.  i.,  p.  106. 

t  "M.  de  la  Fayette  has  been  so  calumniated,  and  his  character  is  nevertheless  so  pure,  so 
consistent,  that  it  is  right  to  devote  at  least  one  note  to  him.  His  conduct  during  the  fifth  and 
sixth  of  October  was  that  of  continual  self-devotion,  and  yet  it  has  been  represented  as  criminal 
by  men  who  owed  their  lives  to  it.  The  spirit  of  party,  feeling  the  danger  of  allowing  any  vir- 
tues to  a  Constitutionalist,  denied  the  services  of  La  Fayette,  and  then  commenced  that  long  sc- 
ries of  calumnies  to  which  he  has  ever  since  been  exposed." — Thiers,  vol.  i.,  p.  108. 

L 


162 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


[Chap.  XVII. 


IIBBOIO   DEFENSE   OF   THE   BOYAL    APAKTMENTS    BY   THE   GABDE   DU   OOBrS,    OCT.    5,    1T3D. 

The  morning  of  the  6th  was  now  dawning,  and  the  whole  multitude, 
swarming  around  the  palace,  demanded  as  with  one  voice  that  the  king 
should  go  to  Paris.  A  council  was  held,  and  it  was  decided  by  the  court 
that  the  king  should  comply.  Slips  of  paper  announcing  the  decision  were 
thrown  to  the  people  from  the  windows.  Loud  shouts  now  rose  of  "  Long 
live  the  King!"  But  threatening  voices  were  raised  against  the  queen,  who 
was  hatcnl  as  an  Austrian,  and  as  one  who  was  endeavoring  to  bring  the  ar- 
mies of  Austria  to  crush  liberty  in  France. 

"  Madame,"  said  La  Fayette  to  the  queen,  "  the  king  goes  to  Paris ;  what 
will  you  do?" 

"  Accompany  the  king,"  was  the  queen's  undaunted  reply. 

"Come  with  me,  then,"  rejoined  the  general. 

lie  led  the  queen  upon  a  balcony,  from  whence  she  looked  out  upon  the 
multitude,  agitated  like  the  ocean  in  a  storm.     All  eyes  were  speedily  fixed 


1789.] 


THE  EOYAL  FAMILY  CARRIED  TO  PARIS. 


163 


upon  her  as  she  stood  by  the  side  of  La  Fayette,  and  held  by  the  hand  her 
httle  son,  the  dauphin.  The  murmurs  of  the  crowd  were  immediately  suc- 
ceeded by  expressions  of  admiration.  La  Fayette  took  her  hand,  and,  rais- 
ing it  to  his  lips,  respectfully  kissed  it.  An  almost  universal  shout  of  "  Long 
live  the  Queen !"  was  the  response  of  the  multitude  to  this  graceful  and  well- 
timed  act.  The  queen  then  stepped  back  into  the  room,  and  said  to  La 
Fayette,  "My  guards,  can  you  not  do  something  for  them?"  "Give  me 
one,"  said  La  Fayette,  and,  leading  the  soldier  to  the  balcony,  he  presented 
him  to  the  people,  and  handed  him  the  tri-colored  cockade.  The  guard 
kissed  it,  and  placed  it  on  his  hat.  The  people  were  satisfied,  reconciled, 
and  cheered  with  hearty  plaudits.  Many  of  the  garde  du  corps  had  been 
taken  prisoners,  and  they  all  would  have  been  murdered  by  the  mob  but 
for  the  vigorous  efforts  of  La  Fayette  to  rescue  them  from  their  hands. 

The  Assembly,  being  apprised  of  the  king's  intention  to  go  to  Paris, 
passed  a  resolution  that  the  Assembly  was  inseparable  from  the  person  of 


LA  FAYETTE  EESCUINQ  THE  OAEDB  DU  C0EP8,    OCT.  6,  1789. 


le^  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XYII. 

the  kinf^,  and  nominated  a  hundred  deputies  to  accompany  him  to  the  me- 
tropolis. Two  of  the  king's  body-guard  had  been  killed,  and  some  wretches 
had  cut  off  their  heads,  aud  were  parading  them  about  on  pikes  * 


TUB   BOYAI.   FAMILY   OONVEYKU  TO  1-AK18,  OCT.  C,  1T8J. 

It  was  one  o'clock  when  the  carriages  containing  the  royal  family  left  Ycr 
sailles.f  The  whole  mob  of  Paris,  men  and  women,  a  tumultuous,  clamoi  ■ 
ous  multitude,  went  in  advance.  Following  immediately  the  carriages  ol 
the  court  came  the  hundred  deputies,  also  in  coaches.  Then  came  the  Na- 
tional Guard.     Carts  laden  with  corn  and  flour,  escorted  by  Grenadiers,  fol- 


*  Thiers,  vol.  i.,  j>.  111. 

+  "I  saw  her  iimjcsty  in  hor  onbinot  an  instant  hcforo  lior  departure  for  I'nris.     She  conUl 
scarcely  Hpcak.     Tears  jjoured  down  her  face,  to  wliiih  all  the  i)lood  in  her  hody  seemed  to  have 
mounted.     She  did  me  the  favor  to  cmhrace  mc,  and  pave  her  hand  to  M.  Tampan  to  kiss,  say-y 
inp  to  us,  "Come  immediately  to  take  up  your  al)ode  in  I'nris.     We  are  utterly  lost;   dragged 
probably  to  death.     Cajitivo  kinp«  arc  always  very  near  it." — Madame  Cawpau,  vol.  ii.,  p.  84. 


1789.]  FRANCE  EEGENERATED.  165 

lowed  the  immense  train.  None  were  so  malignant  and  merciless  as  the 
degraded  women  who  composed  so  large  a  part  of  this  throng.  "  We  shall 
now,"  they  exclaimed,  "  have  bread,  for  we  have  with  us  the  baker,  the  ba- 
ker's wife,  and  the  baker's  boy." 

It  required  seven  hours  for  this  unwieldy  mass  to  urge  its  slow  progress 
to  Paris.  The  king  was  conducted  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  where  he  was  re- 
ceived by  M.  Bailly,  the  mayor.  The  royal  family  descended  from  their 
carriages  by  torch-light,  and  entered  the  great  hall,  where  they  were  received 
with  acclamations.  After  the  ceremony  of  reception  by  the  municipality 
of  Paris  was  over,  the  king  and  his  family  were  conducted  to  the  Tuileries. 
The  vast  palace  had  not  been  the  residence  of  the  royal  family  for  a  hund- 
red years,  and  its  spacious  and  poorly-furnished  apartments  presented  but 
a  cheerless  aspect.  The  National  Guard  were  stationed  around  the  palace, 
and  thus  La  Fayette  was  made  responsible  for  the  safe-keeping  of  the  per- 
son of  the  king.  Thus  terminated  the  eventful  days  of  the  5th  and  6th  of 
October,  1789.  The  king  was  now  virtually  a  prisoner,  and  the  nobles  could 
no  longer  avail  themselves  of  his  name  in  enforcing,  by  the  aid  of  foreign 
armies,  despotism  upon  France. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

FRANCE   REGENERATED. 


Kind  Feelings  of  the  People. — Emigration  receives  a  new  Impulse. — The  National  Assembly 
transferred  to  Paris. — The  Constituent  Assembly. — Assassination  of  Fran9ois. — Anxiety  of 
the  Patriots. — Gloomy  Winter. — Contrast  between  the  Bishops  and  the  laboring  Clergy. — 
Church  Funds  seized  by  the  Assembly. — The  Church  responsible  for  the  Degradation  of  the 
People. — New  Division  of  France. — The  Right  of  Suffrage. — The  Guillotine. — Rabaud  de 
St.  Etienne. 

The  royal  family  was  now  in  Paris.  The  poor  were,  however,  still  per- 
ishing of  famine.  The  night  of  the  6th  of  October  passed  without  disturb- 
ance. It  was  dark  even  to  blackness,  and  torrents  of  rain  deluged  the 
streets.  Early  in  the  morning  of  the  7th  a  vast  multitude  thronged  the 
garden  of  the  Tuileries,  eager  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  king.  They  all 
seemed  animated  by  the  kindest  feelings  toward  their  sovereign.  The  king, 
in  response  to  reiterated  calls,  showed  himself  upon  the  balcony,  and  was  re- 
ceived with  universal  acclamations.  All  the  members  of  the  royal  family 
appeared  to  share  in  this  popularity.  Madame  Elizabeth,  sister  of  the  king, 
a  princess  of  rare  loveliness  both  of  person  and  character,  caused  her  win- 
dow to  be  opened,  and  sat  partaking  of  refreshments  in  the  presence  of  thou- 
sands of  spectators.  Men,  women,  and  children,  a.  vast  multitude,  gathered 
around  the  window,  and  words  of  kindness,  love,  and  joy  were  on  all  lips. 

"  We  have  now  our  king  restored  to  us,"  they  said.  "  He  is  taken  away 
from  his  bad  advisers,  and  will  now  be,  as  he  has  always  wished  to  be,  our 
good  father." 

This  generous,  confiding  spirit  had  taken  such  full  possession  of  the  pub- 
lic mind — the  people,  notwithstanding  the  intolerable  wrongs  they  had  en- 
dured for  so  many  ages,  were  so  ready  to  forgive — that  not  a  word  of  dis- 


166 


THE  FKENCII  KEVULUTION. 


[Chap.  XVni. 


resp.-ct  was  uttered,  even  to  the  foreign  body-guard  of  the  king,  or  to  the 
haughty  lords  and  aristocratic  ladies  who  had  accompanied  the  court  to 
Paris.  The  people  even  cheered  these  nobles,  against  whom  they  had  been 
30  long  contending,  and  addressed  them  in  words  of  kindness.* 


lUE   liOVAL   FAMILY   AUODT  TO  EXHIBIT  TUEM8BLTB8  TO  THE   PEOl' 


The  nobles  were,  however,  so  alarmed  by  this  triumph  of  the  people  that 
emigration  received  a  new  impulse.  One  hundred  and  fifty  of  the  Eoyalist 
deputies  of  the  National  Assembly  immediately  obtained  passports  and  left 
the  kingdom.  Some  of  the  nobles  repaired  to  Turin.  The  Comte  d'Artois 
(Charles  X.)  took  up  his  residence  with  his  father-in-law,  the  King  of  Sar- 
dinia. The  emigrants,  thus  scattered  through  all  the  courts  of  Europe,  were 
busy  in  endeavors  to  rally  the  aristocratic  courts  to  crush  popular  liberty  in 
France.  The  emigration  throughout  the  country  was  so  cxt<.*usivc  that  six- 
ty thousand,  it  was  said,  went  to  Switzerland  alone. 

The  king,  on  the  contrary,  appeared  pleased  with  the  affection  of  his  peo- 
ple. Iln  walked,  without  guards,  through  the  crowds  which  thronged  the 
Elysian  Fields,  and  was  every  where  treated  with  respect.  On  the  9th  of 
October,  three  days  after  his  arrival  in  the  city,  he  sent  a  letter  to  the  As- 

•  For  ovcnvlielniinp  evitlonoo  that  such  was  the  state  of  the  public  mind,  see  Weber,  vol.  i.,- 
p.  257 ;  Beaulicu,  vol.  ii.,  p.  203 ;  Amis  do  la  Libertd,  vol.  iv.,  p.  2-6 ;  Michelct,  vol.  i.,  p.  284. 


1789.]  FRANCE  REGENERATED.  167 

semblj  at  Yersailles,  informing  that  body  that  the  testimonials  of  affection 
and  fidelity  which  he  had  received  from  the  city  of  Paris  had  determined  him 
to  fix  his  ordinary  residence  there.*  He  accordingly  invited  the  Assembly 
to  transfer  its  sitting  to  Paris.  Incredible  as  it  may  seem,  the  imbecile  king 
sent  for  his  smith  tools,  put  up  his  forge,  and  amused  himself  with  file  and 
hammer  tinkering  at  locks.f 

The  Archbishop  of  Paris  had  fled  with  the  emigrants.  On  the  19th  of  Oc- 
tober the  National  Assembly  left  Versailles  and  held  its  first  sitting  in  Paris, 
in  a  room  of  the  archbishop's  palace,  from  which  room  it  soon  removed  to  the 
riding-hall  of  the  Tuileries,  a  much  more  commodious  apartment  which  had 
been  prepared  for  its  accommodation.:};  As  the  great  object  of  the  Assem- 
bly was  now  to  reorganize  the  government  upon  the  basis  of  a  free  consti- 
tution, it  dropped  the  name  of  National  Assembly  on  leaving  Versailles,  and 
assumed  in  Paris  the  name  of  Constituent  Assembly.  Thus  the  same  body 
in  the  course  of  five  months  was  called  by  three  different  names.  It  was 
first  the  States-General,  from  the  period  of  its  meeting  on  the  5th  of  May 
until  the  union  of  the  three  orders  on  the  27th  of  June.  It  was  then  the 
National  Assembly  until  its  removal  from  Versailles  to  Paris,  on  the  19  th  of 
October.  It  then  took  the  name  of  the  Constituent  Assembly,  and  continued 
in  existence  for  nearly  two  years,  until  the  30th  of  September,  1791,  when  it 
expired,  and  a  new  body,  the  Legislative  Assembly,  commenced  its  session. 
The  storm  of  revolution  for  a  time  seemed  to  lull,  and  there  were  but  few 
acts  of  violence.  The  people  of  Paris  were  still  in  a  state  of  fearful  suffer- 
ing from  famine,  and  on  the  21st  of  October  a  few  half-starved  wretches 
seized  a  baker  named  Fran9ois,  whom  they  accused  of  holding  back  his 
bread,  and  in  a  moment  of  phrensy,  before  the  police  could  interfere,  strung 
him  up  at  a  lamp-post,  and  then  cut  off  his  head. 

The  deed  was  denounced  by  even  the  most  violent  of  the  revolutionists, 
and  the  Assembly  took  advantage  of  the  feelmg  which  the  outrage  excited 
to  pass  a  martial  law  against  tumultuous  assemblies  of  the  people.  This 
law,  which  was  almost  a  repetition  of  the  English  riot  act,  was  assailed  by 
many  of  the  journals  as  a  gross  infringement  of  the  rights  of  the  people. 
Eobespierre  in  the  Assembly  and  Marat  in  his  wide-spread  journal  were 
conspicuous  in  denouncing  it. 

The  atrocious  murder  of  Frangois,  who  was  a  generous  and  a  charitable 
man,  and  entirely  innocent  of  the  crime  of  which  he  was  accused,  produced 
a  profound  impression.  It  was  indicative  of  the  rapid  and  fearful  rise  of 
mob  violence.  The  king  and  queen  sent  to  his  young  widow  a  letter  of 
condolence,  with  a  gift  in  money  amounting  to  about  twenty -five  hundred 
dollars.  The  city  government  of  Paris  sent  a  committee  of  its  members  to 
visit  and  console  her.  La  Fayette,  mortified  and  indignant  at  the  outrage, 
scoured  the  faubourgs  in  search  of  the  miscreants  who  perpetrated  the  deed. 
Two  of  the  ringleaders  were  arrested  and  handed  over  to  immediate  trial. 

*  "Weber,  an  eye-witness  of  the  king's  reception  in  Paris,  though  a  zealous  Royalist,  testifies 
that  the  reception  was  most  kind  and  aflfectionate  on  the  part  of  the  masses  of  the  people.  See 
Weber,  vol.  ii.,  p.  228.     See  also  Arthur  Young,  vol.  i.,  p.  264-280. 

t  Le  Chateau  des  Tuileries,  par  Roussel,  in  Hist.  Pari.,  vol.  iv.,  p.  195. 

J  That  hall  has  since  been  destroyed.  It  stood  upon  the  place  now  occupied  by  the  houses 
No.  36  and  38  Rue  de  Rivoli. 


168 


THE  FKENCII  REVOLUTION. 


[CUAP.  XVUI. 

They  were  condemned  to  death,  and  the  next  morning  were  hanged  in  the 
same  Place  de  Grove  which  had  been  the  scene  of  the  outrage.  This  was  the 
only  murder,  perpetrated  by  a  Parisian  mob,  during  the  Kevolution,  which 
the  law  was  sufficiently  powerful  to  punish  * 


ASSASSINATION   OK   FBANlOiS   THE  UAKEU. 

In  other  parts  of  the  kingdom  there  were  occasional  acts  of  violence. 
Bread  was  so  enormously  dear  that  the  corn-dealers  were  accused  of  hoard- 
ing up  immense  stores  for  the  sake  of  speculation.  The  ignorant  mob  in 
some  instances  seriously  maltreated  those  suspected  of  this  crime.  The  in- 
nocent were  thus  often  punished,  for  the  violence  of  the  mob  is  as  likely  to 
fall  upon  the  innocent  as  upon  the  guilty. 

Many  of  the  most  intelligent  friends  of  reform  began  now  to  fear  that  the 
nation  was  going  "  too  fast  and  too  far."  The  scenes  of  the  5th  of  October, 
and  the  omnipotence  of  the  mob  as  evinced  on  that  day,  had  inspired  fearful 
apprehensions  for  the  future.  Even  La  Fayette  felt  that  the  salvation  of  the 
cause  of  liberty  depended  upon  strengthening  the  power  of  the  king.  He 
induced  the  king  to  send  the  Duke  of  Orleans  from  Paris,  and  when  the  duke 
wished  to  return  he  sent  liim  word  that,  the  day  after  his  return,  he  would 
have  to  fight  a  duel  with  him. 

Mirabeau  united  with  La  Fayette  in  these  endeavors  to  stop  the  nation  in 

*  Even  the  most  zonlous  tif  the  rcvolutionnry  journnls  donouncod  with  unmonsurod  sovcrity 
the  murder  (»f  FrniK^oiH.  Loustnlot  exclniinod,  "l)es  Fran^uis  !  dcs  Fran^nis  !  non,  non  de  tels 
moiiHtres  irai>i>artioiment  u  nucun  jmys;  lo  crime  est  leur  element,  Ic  gibet  Icur  patrie." 


1789.] 


FRANCE  REGENERATED. 


169 


its  headlong  rush,  and  to  secure  constitutional  liberty  by  giving  strength  to 
the  monarchical  arm.  They  were  both  of  the  opinion  that  France,  surround- 
ed by  powerful  and  jealous  monarchies,  and  with  millions  of  peasants  unac- 
customed to  self-government,  who  could  neither  read  nor  write,  and  who 
were  almost  as  uuinstructed  as  the  sheep  they  tended,  needed  a  throne  found- 
ed upon  a  free  constitution.*  Even  in  the  Assembly  Mirabeau  ventured  to 
urge  that  it  luas  necessary  to  restore  strength  to  the  executive  poiver.\  But  the 
court  hated  both  La  Fayette  and  Mirabeau,  and  were  opposed  to  any  dimi- 
nution of  their  own  exclusive  privileges.  They  would  accept  of  no  compro- 
mise, and  all  the  efforts  of  the  moderate  party  were  unavailing. 

Gloomy  winter  now  commenced,  and  there  was  no  money,  no  labor,  no 
bread.  The  aristocratic  j)arty  all  over  the  realm  were  packing  their  trunks, 
and  sending  before  them  across  the  frontiers  whatever  funds  they  could  col- 
lect. They  wished  to  render  France  as  weak  and  miserable  as  possible,  that 
the  people  might  be  more  easily  again  subjugated  to  the  feudal  yoke  by  the 
armies  of  foreign  despots.  Hence  there  was  a  frightful  increase  of  beggary. 
In  Paris  alone  there  were  two  hundred  thousand.  It  is  one  of  the  greatest 
of  marvels  that  such  a  mass  of  men,  literally  starving,  could  have  remained 
so  quiet.     The  resources  of  the  kingdom  were  exhausted  during  the  winter 


FIEES  IN  THE  STREETS  FOE  THE  POOS. 


in  feeding,  in  all  the  towns  of  France,  paupers  amounting  to  millions.     All 
eyes  were  now  directed  to  the  National  Assembly  for  measures  of  relief. 
The  wealth  of  the  clergy  was  enormous.     Almsgiving,  which  has  filled 

^  *  On  the  15th  of  March,  M.  de  Lamarck  took  to  Mirabeau  the  overtures  of  the  court,  but  found 
him  very  cool.  When  pressed  by  Lamarck,  he  said  that  the  throne  could  only  be  restored  by 
establishing  it  upon  a  basis  of  Hberty ;  that,  if  the  court  wanted  any  thing  else,  he  vv^ould  oppose 
instead  of  serving  it:'— Michelet,  p.  328. 

t  In  attestation  of  the  correctness  of  these  remarks,  see  the  statements  of  Mirabeau,  La  Fay- 
ette, and  Alexander  de  Lanieth. 


170  THE  lUENCII  KEVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XYIU. 

Europe  with  beggary,  has  ever  been  represented  by  the  Catholic  Church  as 
the  first  act  of  piety.  During  long  ages  of  superstition,  the  dying  had  been 
induced,  as  an  atonement  for  godless  lives,  to  bequeath  their  possessions  to 
the  Church,  to  be  dispensed  iij  charity  to  the  people.  Thus  many  a  wealthy 
sinner  had  obtained  absolution,  and  thus  the  ecclesiastics  held  endowments 
which  comprised  one  fifth  of  the  lands  of  the  kingdom,  and  were  estimated 
at  four  thousand  millions  of  francs  ($800,000,000).* 

Notwithstanding  this  immense  opulence  of  the  Church,  nearly  all  the  par- 
ish pastors,  the  hard  and  faithful  workers  for  Christianity — and  there  were 
many  such,  men  of  true  lives  and  of  unfeigned  religion — were  in  the  extreme 
of  poverty.  The  bishops  were  all  nohks,  for  even  Louis  XVI.  would  elect  no 
other.  These  bishops  were  often  the  most  dissolute  and  voluptuous  of  men, 
and  reveled  in  incomes  of  a  milUon  of  francs  ($250,000)  a  year.  The  work- 
ing clergy,  on  the  contrary,  who  were  from  the  people,  seldom  received  more 
than  two  hundred  francs  ($40)  a  year.  They  were  so  poor  as  to  be  quite  de- 
pendent upon  their  parishioners  for  charity.f 

The  Assembly  assumed  that  these  treasures  had  been  intrusted  to  the 
Church  for  the  benefit  of  the  people ;  that  the  luxurious  ecclesiastics,  by  un- 
faithfulness to  their  trust,  had  forfeited  the  right  of  farther  dispensing  the 
charity.  After  a  very  fierce  strife,  a  motion  was  made  by  Mirabcau,  that 
the  possessions  of  the  Church  were  at  the  disposal  of  the  state.  Many  of  the 
lower  clergy  voted  for  the  resolution,  and  it  was  adopted  by  a  majority  of 
568  against  346.  Forty  deputies  refused  to  vote.  This  measure  placed  at 
once  immense  resources  in  the  hands  of  the  Assembly,  and  necessarily  exas- 
perated tenfold  the  privileged  classes,  and  rolled  a  w^ave  of  alarm  over  the 
whole  wide-spread  domain  of  the  Pope.  It  was  the  signal  for  Catholic  Eu- 
rope to  rise  in  arms  against  the  Revolution.  As  it  was  impossible,  under  the 
pressure  of  the  times,  to  force  the  sale  of  the  enormous  property  of  the  Church 
without  an  immense  sacrifice,  bonds  were  issued,  called  assignats,  assigned  or 
secured  on  this  church  .property. 

Thus  was  the  haughty  Gallican  Church  deprived  of  its  ill-gotten  and  worec 
used  wealth.  The  dignitaries  of  this  Church  had  ever  been  the  most  invet- 
erate foes  of  popular  elevation.  Treasure  which  had  been  wrested  from  the 
poor  and  extorted  from  the  dying,  as  a  gift  to  God  for  the  promotion  of 
human  virtue,  they  were  using  to  forge  chains  for  the  people,  and  were 
squandering  in  shameless  profligacy. 

Nearly  all  the  nobles  were  infidels,  disciples  of  Voltaire.  For  years,  while 
reveling  in  wine  and  debauchery,  they  had  held  up  religion  to  contempt. 
But  they  now  suddenly  became  very  devout,  espoused  the  cause  of  their 
boon  companions,  the  bishops,  and  remonstrated  against  laying  unholy  hands 
upon  the  treasury  of  the  Lord.  All  over  Europe  the  two  most  formidable 
forces,  secular  and  riiligious  aristocracy,  were  now  combined  against  popular 

•  Micholet,  vol.  i.,  p.  290. 

t  III  the  ftrmy  tliero  was  tho  sanio  iiifcjuality.  Accnrdinfr  tn  tho  bndpot  for  war  in  1TS4.  tlio 
officers  received  forty-six  inillions  of  fnm.s,  aii.l  tlie  whole  body  of  soldiers  hut  forty-four.  "  It 
H  true,"  HiiyKMirhelet,  "  that,  under  Louis  XVI.,  another  i)ay  was  added,  settled  with  the  eudpel. 
This  was  to  imitate  the  fiimoiis  discipline  of  Prussia,  and  was  supposed  to  contain  the  whole  se- 
cret of  the  victories  of  Frederick  tlu-  (Jreat :  man  driven  like  a  machine,  and  punished  like  a 
child."     The  soldiere  under  the  Empire  knew  how  to  appreciate  the  change. 


1789.]  FRANCE  REGENERATED.  171 

reform.  It  was  this  principle  whicli  led  the  Protestant  English  noble  and 
the  papal  Austrian  bishop  to  make  common  cause  against  the  regeneration 
of  France. 

There  were  some  French  nobles  and  French  bishops  who  recognized, 
whatever  maj  have  been  their  motives,  the  rights  of  the  people,  and  es- 
poused their  side.  Talleyrand,  the  Bishop  of  Autun,  introduced  the  meas- 
ure, and  Mirabeau  supported  it  with  all  the  energy  of  his  eloquence. 

The  degradation  of  the  people  is  the  condemnation  of  the  papal  Church. 
For  many  centuries  the  office  of  elevating  the  people  had  devolved  upon 
the  clergy.  Instead  of  instructing  their  congregations,  the  forms  of  worship 
had  been  converted  into  a  senseless  pantomime ;  the  prayers  were  offered  in 
an  unknown  tongue ;  the  word  of  God  was  excluded  from  their  sight.  The 
rich  became  infidels  and  atheists,  and  by  robbing  the  poor  luxuriated  in 
profligacy.  The  poor  became  brutalized  and  savage,  and  were  held  under 
restraint  only  by  the  terrors  of  a  soul-hardening  superstition. 

There  is  no  hope  of  peace  for  the  world  but  in  that  doctrine  of  Christ 
which  promotes  the  brotherhood  of  man.  Where  this  fraternity  is  recog- 
nized and  its  sympathies  circulate,  there  is  peace.  The  aristocratic  Church 
in  France  had  been  the  tool  of  the  court  in  degrading  and  enslaving  the  peo- 
ple. The  awful  day  of  retribution  was  but  the  inevitable  progress  of  the 
divine  law.  Man,  crushed  and  trampled  upon  by  his  brother  man,  may  en- 
dure it  for  an  age,  for  a  century,  but  the  time  will  oome  when  he  will  en- 
dure it  no  longer,  and  the  ferocity  of  his  rising  will  be  proportionate  to  the 
depth  and  the  gloom  of  the  dungeon  in  which  he  has  been  immured.*  The 
progress  of  the  world  is  toward  justice,  equality,  and  nature.  If  that  progress 
be  not  peaceful  it  will  be  violent  and  bloody.  The  vital  energies  of  the  soul 
of  man  can  not  forever  be  repressed. 

France  had  for  some  time  been  divided  into  thirteen  large  provinces,  in- 
corporated at  different  periods  and  possessing  different  immunities  and  a  di- 
versity of  customs  and  laws.  The  Assembly  broke  down  all  these  old  bar- 
riers that  a  character  of  unity  might  be  given  to  the  nation.  The  kingdom 
was  divided  into  eighty-three  departments,  each  department  being  about 
fifty-four  miles  square.  These  departments  were  divided  into  districts,  and 
the  districts  into  communes.  This  division  somewhat  resembled  that  of  the 
United  States,  into  states,  counties,  and  towns. 

The  right  of  suffrage  was  extended  to  all  male  citizens  twenty-five  years 
of  age,  who  had  resided  in  the  electoral  district  one  year,  who  had  paid  a 
direct  tax  amounting  to  the  value  of  three  days'  labor,  about  sixty  cents, 
who  were  not  in  the  condition  of  servants,  and  who  were  enrolled  in  the 
National  Guard.  These  were  called  active  citizens.  The  rest  of  the  popu- 
lation were  deemed  passive  citizens.  To  be  eligible  to  office  either  as  a  mag- 
istrate or  a  representative,  it  was  required  that  one  should  pay  a  direct  tax 
of  about  ten  dollars,  and  also  be  a  landholder.     The  aristocrats  considered 

*  ' '  Eveiy  body  was  acquainted  with  the  morals  of  the  prelates  and  the  ignorance  of  the  infe- 
rior clergy.  The  curates  possessed  some  virtues  but  no  information.  Wherever  they  ruled  they 
were  an  obstacle  to  every  improvement  of  the  people,  and  caused  them  to  retrograde.  To  quote 
but  one  example,  Poitou,  civilized  in  the  sixteenth  century,  became  barbarous  under  their  influ- 
ence; they  were  preparing  for  us  the  civil  war  of  Vendee." — Michelet,  p.  222. 


I'j2  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [CUAP.  XVllI. 

this  extension  of  the  right  of  suffrage  as  awfully  radical  and  democratic. 
On  the  other  hand  the  democracy,  from  its  lower  depths,  exclaimed  with  the 
utmost  vehemence  and  indignation  against  the  restriction  of  the  right  of  suf- 
frage and  of  office  to  tax-payers  and  property-holders. 

"  There  is  but  one  united  voice,"  cried  Camille  Desmoulins,  "  in  the  city 
and  in  the  country,  against  this  ten -dollar  decree  {k  ckcret  du  marc  d' argent). 
It  is  constituting  in  France  an  aristocratic  government,  and  it  is  the  most 
signal  victory  which  the  aristocrats  have  yet  gained  in  the  Assembly.  To 
demonstrate  the  absurdity  of  the  decree  it  is  necessary  but  to  mention  that 
Rousseau,  Comeille,  Mably,  under  it  could  not  have  been  eligible.  As  for 
you,  ye  despicable  priests,  ye  lying  cheating  knaves,  do  you  see  that  you 
make  even  your  God  ineligible  ?*  Jesus  Christ,  whom  you  recognize  as  di- 
vine, you  thrust  out  into  the  ranks  of  the  mob.  And  do  you  wish  that  I 
should  respect  you,  ye  priests  of  an  ignominious  God  {d\m  Dieu  jyroletaire). 
who  is  not  even  an  active  citizen  ?  Respect  that  poverty  which  Jesus  Christ 
has  ennobled."f 

Such  fierce  appeals  produced  a  profound  and  exasperating  impression  upon 
the  army  of  two  hundred  thousand  beggars  in  Paris  and  upon  the  millions 
utterly  impoverished  in  France.  "  We  have  overthrown  the  aristocracy  of 
birth,"  the  orators  of  the  populace  exclaimed,  "  only  to  introduce  the  still 
more  hateful  aristocracy  of  the  purse."  The  working  clergy,  who  were 
among  the  foremost  in  favor  of  reform,  were  almost  to  a  man  efficient  mem- 
bers of  the  moderate  party,  and  cordially  co-operated  with  La  Fayette  in  the 
endeavor  to  prevent  liberty  from  being  whelmed  in  lawlessness.  .  The  cler- 
gy had  great  influence,  and  hence  the  venom  of  the  popular  speakers  and 
writers  was  perseveringly  directed  against  them.:}; 

The  Assembly  then  abolished  the  oppressive  duty  upon  salt.§  The  old 
parliaments  of  the  old  provinces,  as  corrupt  bodies  as  have  perhaps  ever  ex- 
isted, and  the  subservient  instruments  of  aristocratic  oppression,  were  sup- 
pressed, and  new  courts  of  a  popular  character  substituted  in  their  place". 
All  trials  were  ordered  to  be  joublic ;  no  punishment,  on  accusation  for  crune, 
could  be  inflicted  unless  by  a  vote  of  two  thirds  of  the  court.  The  penalty 
of  death  required  a  vote  of  four  fifths.  The  revocation  of  the  Edict  of 
Nantes  was  blotted  out,  and  thus  some  thousands  of  Protestants  who  had 

*  Some  curious  facts  were  elicited  durinp;  the  progress  of  this  discussion  rcspcctinp  the  manner 
in  wliich  a  portion  of  the  vast  revenues  of  tiie  Church  had  hecn  obtained.  The  clerpy  of  Condom 
promised  the  Hinijile,  kind-hearted  peasants,  in  consideration  fur  a  hirpe  quantity  of  prain,  that 
they  would  every  year  conduct  two  hundred  and  Hfty  souls  from  ])urpatory  directly  to  Paradise. 
In  some  places  a  repular  tariff  of  prices  had  been  established  for  the  pardon  of  crimes.  Absolu- 
tion for  incest  could  Vjc  [turchased  for  one  dollar,  arson  required  one  dollar  and  a  quarter,  j)arri- 
cide  one  dollar,  and  absolution  could  be  obtained  for  all  sins  united  for  about  sixteen  dollars. 
These  prices  seem  very  moderate.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  peasants  were  excessive/if 
I>oor,  and  could  not,  even  to  escaj)e  from  j)urpatory,  pay  larpe  sums. —  Mlliaumd,  p.  62. 

t  Histoire  dcs  Montapnards,  par  Aljdionse  Esciuiros,  p.  2.'>. 

J  In  the  Faubourp  St.  Antoine,  which  contained  a  population  of  thirty  thousand,  it  is  snid 
that  there  were  but  two  hundred  active  citizens.  Marat,  in  his  addresses  to  the  "  unfortunate 
citizens  of  the  faubourps,"  urped  them  to  vote,  notwiihstandinp  the  decree  of  the  Assembly. 
"  No  power  under  the  sun,"  said  he,  '•  can  deprive  you  of  the  ripht  of  suffrape,  which  is  inhe- 
rent in  society  itself." 

§  The  price  of  salt  imniediateiy  f.ll  from  fourteen  sous  a  pound  to  less  than  one  sou. —  T'lV- 
liautn4. 


1789.]  FRANCE  EEGENERATED.  173 

long  been  banislied  from  France  were  permitted  to  return  and  to  enjo}^  all 
their  political  rights.  It  was  decreed  that  all  citizens,  of  whatever  condition, 
should  be  subject  to  the  same  laws  and  judged  by  the  same  tribunals.  Those 
accused  of  crime  were  to  be  tried  by  jury,  but  not  till  a  court  had  previous- 
ly determined  that  the  evidence  against  them  Avas  sufficiently  strong  to  war- 
rant their  arrest.  It  is  remarkable  that  both  Robespierre  and  Marat  were 
most  earnest  in  their  endeavors  to  abrogate  the  death-penalty.  During  this 
discussion  Dr.  Guillotin  urged  the  adoption,  in  capital  punishment,  of  a  new 
machine  which  he  had  invented. 

"With  my  machine,"  said  the  doctor,  "I  can  clip  off  your  head  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye  without  your  feeling  it." 

These  words,  most  earnestly  uttered,  caused  a  general  burst  of  laughter'  in 
the  Assembly.  But  a  few  months  passed  ere  many  of  those  deputies  were 
bound  to  the  plank  and  experienced  the  efficiency  of  the  keen  blade.  The 
introduction  of  the  guillotine  was  intended  as  a  measure  of  humanit}^.  The 
unfortunate  man  doomed  to  death  was  thus  to  be  saved  from  needless  suf- 
fering.* 

The  measures  adopted  by  the  Constituent  Assembly  seem  to  republican 
eyes  just  and  moderate.  Experience,  it  is  true,  has  proved  that  it  is  safer  to 
have  two  houses  of  legislation,  a  senate  and  a  lower  house,  than  one,  but  the 
subsequent  decrees  passed  by  this  one  house  were  manifestly  dictated,  not  by 
passion,  but  by  patriotism  and  a  sense  of  right.f 

The  clergy  now  made  immense  efforts  to  rouse  the  peasantry  all  over  the 
kingdom  to  oppose  the  Revolution.  Religious  fanaticism  exhausted  all  its 
energies.  The  parliaments  also  of  the  old  provinces,  composed  exclusively 
of  the  nobles,  roused  themselves  anew  and  were  vehement  in  remonstrances 
and  protests.  They  became  active  agents  in  organizing  opposition,  in  ma- 
ligning the  action  of  the  Assembly,  and  in  inciting  the  credulous  multitude  to 
violence.     The  Assembly  punished  the  parliaments  by  abolishing  them  all. 

The  court  bitterly  accused  the  Assembly  of  a  usurpation  of  power,  which 
called  from  Mirabeau  a  reply  which  electrified  France. 

"You  ask,"  he  said,  "how,  from  being  deputies,  we  have  made  ourselves 
a  convention.  I  will  tell  you.  The  day  when,  finding  our  assembly-room 
shut,  bristling  and  defiled  with  bayonets,  we  hastened  to  the  first  place  that 
could  contain  us,  and  swore  that  we  would  perish  rather  than  abandon  the 
interests  of  the  people — on  that  day,  if  we  were  not  a  convention,  we  became 
one.  Let  them  now  go  and  hunt  out  of  the  useless  nomenclature  of  civilians 
the  definition  of  the  words  National  Convention  !  Gentlemen,  you  all  know 
the  conduct  of  that  Roman  who,  to  save  his  country  from  a  great  conspiracy, 
had  been  obliged  to  outstep  the  powers  conferred  upon  him  by  the  laws. 
A  captious  tribune  required  from  him  the  oath  that  he  had  respected  them. 
He  thought,  by  that  insidious  proposal,  to  leave  the  consul  no  alternative 
but  perjury  or  an  embarrassing  avowal.     'I  swear,'  said  that  great  man, 

*  It  was  not  until  the  month  of  March,  1792,  that  the  guillotine  was  first  used. 

t  "The  government  of  the  Revolution  was  rapidly  becoming  established.  The  Aisemblv  had 
given  to  the  new  regime  its  monarch,  its  national  representation,  its  territorial  division,  its  armed 
force,  its  municipal  and  administrative  power,  its  popular  tribunals,  its  currency,  its  clergy ;  it 
had  made  an  arrangement  with  respect  to  its  debt,  and  had  found  means  to  reconstruct  property 
without  injustice." — Miguet,  p.  87. 


l-j^  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [CllAP.  XVIII. 

'  that  I  have  saved  the  republic.'     Gentlemen,  we  also  swear  that  we  have 
saved  the  commonwealth." 

This  sublime  apostrophe  brought  the  whole  Assembly  to  its  feet.  The 
charge  of  usurpation  was  not  repeated. 

A  great  effort  was  at  the  same  time  made  to  compel  the  Assembly  to  adopt 
the  resolution  that  the  "  Catholic,  Apostolic,  and  Roman  religion  is,  and  shall 
ever  be,  the  religion  of  the  nation,  and  that  its  worship  is  the  only  one  au- 
thorized." As  one  of  the  court  party  was  urging  this  resolve,  and  quoting, 
as  a  precedent,  some  intolerant  decree  of  Louis  XIV.,  Mirabeau  sent  dismay 
to  the  heart  of  the  court  by  exclaiming, 

"  And  how  should  not  every  kind  of  intolerance  have  been  consecrated  in 
a  reign  signalized  by  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  ?" 

Then,  pointing  to  a  window  of  the  Louvre,  he  continued,  in  deep  and  sol- 
emn tones  which  thrilled  through  every  heart, 

"  Do  you  appeal  to  history  ?  Forget  not  that  from  this  very  hall  I  behold 
the  window  whence  a  kmg  of  France,  armed  against  his  people  by  an  exe- 
crable faction  that  disguised  personal  interest  under  the  cloak  of  religion, 
fired  his  musket  and  gave  the  signal  for  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew !" 

The  effect  was  electric,  and  the  spirit  of  intolerance  was  crushed. 

The  true  Christian  charity  which  the  Assembly  assumed  was  cordially 
accepted  by  the  mass  of  the  nation.  We  love  to  record  the  fact  that  the 
great  majority  of  the  Catholic  population  were  delighted  to  see  the  Protest- 
ants restored  to  their  civil  and  religious  rights.  Even  Michelet,  hostile  as 
he  is  to  all  revealed  religion,  testifies:  "The  unanimity  was  affecting,  and 
one  of  the  sights  the  most  worthy  to  call  down  the  blessing  of  God  upon 
earth.  In  many  parts  the  Catholics  went  to  the  temple  of  the  Protestants, 
and  united  with  them  to  return  thanks  to  Providence  together.  On  the 
other  hand  the  Protestants  attended  at  the  Catholic  Te  Deum.  Far  above  all 
the  altars,  every  temple  and  every  church,  a  divine  ray  had  appeared  in 
heaven."*  In  every  place  where  the  Protestants  were  in  the  majority  they 
presented  the  most  affecting  spectacle  of  fraternity. 

A  Protestant,  M.  Rabaud  de  St.  Eticnne,  was  chosen  president  of  the  As- 
sembly— a  position  at  that  time  higher  than  that  of  the  throne.  lie  was  the 
son  of  the  celebrated  Protestant  martyr  of  Cevennes,  who  for  long  years  had 
been  hunted  like  a  wild  beast,  as  he  hid  in  dens  in  the  forest,  escaping  from 
the  ferocity  of  religious  persecution.  The  venerable  parent  was  still  living, 
and  received  from  his  son  a  letter  containing  the  declaration,  "  The  presi- 
dent of  the  National  Assembly  is  at  your  feet." 

The  higher  ecclesiastics  were,  however,  exasperated  by  this  triumph  of 
religious  liljcrty.  They  succeeded,  in  Montauban  and  in  Nimes,  in  exciting 
a  Koman  Catholic  mob  against  the  Protestants.  The  ignorant  po]nilace, 
roused  by  su[)er8tition,  seized  their  arms,  shouted  "  Down  with  the  nation  I" 
and  fell  with  the  most  cruel  butcliery  upon  the  Protestants.  The  violent 
insurrection  wa.^,  however,  soon  quelled,  and  without  any  acts  of  retaliatory 
vengeance.f     The  bishops  anathematized  every  priest  friendly  to  the  Revo- 

♦  Micliolct'H  Fronrh  Revolution,  p.  .ir>8. 

t  "What  was  the  Nntioinil  Asscinlily  tloinp  nt  this  time  in  Paris?  Its  more  than  Christian 
mcckni'ss  is  a  HiM]prisinp  spectacle." — Mirluht,  p.  30.1. 


1790.]  THE  KING  ACCEPTS  THE  CONSTITUTION.  I75 

lution,  and  designated  all  sucli  to  the  hatred  and  contempt  of  the  fanatic 
populace.  The  bishop  who,  under  the  old  regime,  had  enjoyed  an  income 
of  eight  hundred  thousand,  francs  ($160,000),  and  was  rejoicing  in  his  pal- 
aces, horses,  and  concubines,  invoked  the  wrath  of  God  upon  the  curate  who 
was  now  receiving  twelve  hundred  francs  ($240)  from  the  nation.  The 
power  of  the  papal  ecclesiastics  was  so  strong  that  most  of  the  humble  cu- 
rates were  eventually  compelled  to  abandon  the  Eevolution  8,nd  rally  again 
around  the  sceptre  of  the  Pope. 

The  air  was  still  filled  with  rumors  of  plots  to  disperse  the  Assembly  and 
carry  the  king  off"  to  the  protection  of  the  royalist  army  at  Metz,  where  he 
could  be  forced  by  the  nobles  to  sanction  their  course,  in  invading  France 
with  foreign  armies.  On  the  2oth  of  December  the  Marquis  of  Favrus  was 
arrested,  accused  of  forming  a  plot  to  seize  the  king  with  an  army  of  thirty 
thousand  men,  and  to  assassinate  La  Fayette  and  Bailly.  It  was  said  that 
twelve  hundred  horse  were  ready  at  Versailles  to  carry  off  the  king,  and 
that  a  powerful  force,  composed  of  Swiss  and  Piedmontese,  was  organized 
to  march  upon  Paris.  The  king's  brother,  the  Count  of  Provence,  subse- 
quently Louis  XYIIL,  was  reported  as  in  the  plot,  and  to  have  supplied 
the  conspii'ators  with  large  sums  of  money.  Louis  was  willing  to  be  ab- 
ducted as  if  by  violence,  but  was  not  wilhng  to  assume  any  responsibility 
by  engaging  in  measures  for  escape.  He  assumed  the  attitude  of  content- 
ment, and  with  such  apparent  cordiality  professed  co-operation  in  the  meas- 
ures of  the  Assembly  for  the  regeneration  of  France  that  many  supposed 
that  he  had  honestly  espoused  the  popular  cause. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

THE   KING  ACCEPTS  THE   CONSTITUTION. 

The  King  visits  the  Assembly. — His  Speech. — The  Priests  rouse  the  Populace. — The  King's 
Salary. — Petition  of  Talma. — Views  of  Napoleon. — Condemnation  and  Execution  of  the  Mar- 
quis of  Favrus. — Spirit  of  the  New  Constitution. — National  Jubilee. — The  Queen  sympathizes 
with  t^e  Popular  Movement. — Writings  of  Edmund  Biu-ke. 

On  the  4th  of  February  the  king,  without  any  previous  announcement, 
to  the  surprise  of  all,  entered  the  hall  of  the  Assembly.  A  burst  of  wel- 
come greeted  his  entrance.  The  tidings  of  this  movement  spread  with  elec- 
tric speed  through  Paris,  and  thousands  of  spectators  speedily  filled  all  parts 
of  the  hall  to  listen  to  the  king's  speech.  The  king  stood  upon  the  plat- 
form, and  addressed  the  Assembly  with  words  of  dignity  and  eloquence 
which  seemed  above  his  nature.  There  was  such  an  air  of  sincerity  per- 
vading every  sentence  that  no  one  could  doubt  that  he  was  giving  utterance 
to  his  real  opinions.  This  remarkable  speech  contained  the  following  ey 
pressions  :* 

"  Gentlemen,  the  critical  circumstances  in  which  France  is  placed  bring 
me  among  you.  A  grand  goal  is  presented  to  your  view,  but  it  is  requisite 
that  it  be  attained  without  any  increase  of  agitation,  and  without  any  new 
convnlsions.     It  was,  I  must  say,  in  a  more  agreeable  and  a  more  quiet 

*  For  the  speech  in  full,  see  Thiers,  vol.  i.,  p.  126. 


176  THE  FRENCU  REVOLUTION.  [ClIAP.  XIX. 

manner  that  I  had  hoped  to  lead  you  to  it,  when  I  formed  the  design  of  as- 
sembhng  you,  and  of  bringing  together  for  the  public  welfare  the  talents 
and  the  opinions  of  the  representatives  of  the  nation ;  but  my  happiness  and 
my  glory  are  not  the  less  connected  with  the  success  of  your  labors. 

"  I  think  that  the  time  is  come  when  it  is  of  importance  to  the  interests 
of  the  state  that  I  should  associate  myself,  in  a  more  express  and  manifest 
manner,  in  the  execution  and  success  of  all  that  you  have  planned  for  the 
benefit  of  France.  I  can  not  seize  a  more  signal  occasion  than  when  you 
submit  to  my  acceptance  decrees  destined  to  establish  a  new  organization  in 
the  kingdom,  which  must  have  so  important  and  so  propitious  an  influence 
on  the  happiness  of  my  subjects  and  on  the  prosperity  of  this  empire. 

"  You  know,  gentlemen,  it  is  more  than  ten  years  ago,  at  a  time  when  the 
wishes  of  the  nation  relative  to  provincial  asscmbhes  had  not  yet  been  ex- 
l)ressed,  I  began  to  substitute  that  kind  of  administration  for  the  one  which 
ancient  and  long  habit  had  sanctioned.  You  have  improved  upon  these 
views  in  several  ways,  and  the  most  essential,  no  doubt,  is  that  equal  and 
wisely -calculated  suljdivision  which,  by  breaking  down  the  ancient  parti- 
tions between  province  and  province,  and  establishing  a  general  and  com- 
plete system  of  equilibrium,  more  intimately  unites  all  parts  of  the  kingdom 
in  one  and  the  same  spirit,  in  one  and  the  same  interest.  This  grand  idea, 
this  salutary  design,  is  all  your  own.  I  will  promote,  I  will  second,  by  all 
the  means  in  my  power,  the  success  of  that  vast  organization  on  which  de- 
pends the  welfare  of  France, 

'•  Let  it  be  known  every  where  that  the  monarch  and  the  representatives 
of  the  nation  are  united  in  the  same  interest,  in  the  same  wish.  Some  day, 
I  fondly  believe,  every  Frenchman,  without  exception,  will  acknowledge  the 
l)enefit  of  the  total  suppression  of  the  differences  of  order  and  condition. 
No  doubt  those  who  have  relinquished  their  pecuniary  privileges — those 
who  will  no  longer  form,  as  of  old,  an  order  in  the  state,  find  themselves 
subjected  to  sacrifices,  the  importance  of  which  I  fully  appreciate;  but  I  am 
persuaded  that  they  will  have  generosity  enough  to  seek  an  indemnification 
in  all  the  public  advantages  of  which  the  establishment  of  national  assem- 
blies holds  out  a  hope. 

"I  will  defend,  therefore,  I  will  uphold  constitutional  liberty,  the  princi- 
])les  of  which  the  public  wish,  in  accordance  with  mine,  has  sanctioned.  I 
will  do  more,  and,  in  concert  with  the  queen,  who  shares  all  my  sentiments, 
I  will  early  adapt  the  mind  and  heart  of  my  son  to  the  new  order  of  things 
which  circumstances  have  brought  about.  I  will  accustom  him  from  his 
very  first  years  to  seek  happiness  in  the  happiness  of  the  French,  and  ever 
to  acknowledge  that,  in  spite  of  the  language  of  flatterers,  a  wise  constitution 
will  preserve  him  from  the  dangers  of  inexperience,  and  that  a  just  liberty 
adds  a  new  value  to  the  sentiments  of  affection  and  loyalty  of  which  the  na- 
tion has,  for  so  many  ages,  given  such  touching  proofs  to  its  kings." 

These  noble  words,  which  were  uttered  with  as  much  sincerity  as  a  weak 
and  vacillating  mind  was  capable  of  cherishing,  were  received  Avith  the  most 
enthusiastic  expressions  of  pleasure  and  gratitude.  Thunders  of  applause 
filled  the  house,  in  which  the  galleries  tumultuously  joined.  All  past  jeal- 
ousies seemed  forgotten  forever,  and  the  queen  and  the  daujihin  shared  in 


1790.]  THE  KING  ACCEPTS  THE  CONSTITUTION.  177 

the  transporting  acclaim.  The  multitude,  with  shouts  of  applause,  conduct- 
ed the  king  back  to  the  Tuileries,  while  the  Assembly  voted  thanks  to  him 
and  to  the  queen. 

The  king  had  thus  publicly  accepted  the  Constitution  even  before  it  was 
completed,  and  promised  to  support  it.  Each  deputy  took  the  oath  to  up- 
hold the  "  Constitution  decreed  by  the  National  Assembly  and  accepted  by 
the  king."  The  example  was  contagious,  and  the  oath  was  repeated,  with 
festivities  and  illuminations,  in  every  district  of  Paris,  and  through  all  the 
cities  and  villages  of  France. 

Thus  far  the  reforms  adopted  had  been,  on  the  whole,  most  eminently 
wise,  and  such  as  the  welfare  of  the  nation  imperiously  demanded.  Had  the 
privileged  classes  acceded,  as  they  ought  to  have  done,  to  these  measures  of 
justice,  and  contributed  their  influence  in  favor  of  law  and  order,  all  might 
have  been  well,  and  the  Iliad  of  woes  which  succeeded  might  never  have 
been  known.  But  the  nobles  and  the  higher  clergy  did  every  thing  in  their 
power  to  stimulate  the  mob  to  violence,  to  fill  France  with  lawlessness  and 
blood,  that  they  might  more  effectually  appeal  to  religious  fanaticism  at  home 
and  to  despotism  abroad  to  forge  chains  and  rivet  them  anew  upon  the  en- 
franchised people. 

Every  effort  was  now  made  to  combine  the  clergy  against  the  Eevolution 
— to  rouse  the  ignorant  and  superstitious  masses  with  the  cry  that  religion 
was  in  danger,  and  to  march  the  armies  of  surrounding  monarchies  in  a  war 
of  invasion  upon  France.  The  nobles  of  the  Church  and  the  State  were  re- 
sponsible for  that  terrific  outburst  of  the  mob,  which  might  easily  have  been 
repressed  if  they  would  have  united  with  the  true  patriots  in  favor  of  liberty 
and  of  law.* 

In  many  of  the  rural  districts  the  priests  roused  the  fanatic  populace  to 
forcible  resistance.  Many  of  the  priests  had  been  in  a  condition  of  almost 
compulsory  subservience  to  the  higher  clergy.  Trained  to  obedience  as  the 
primal  law  of  the  Church,  they  combined  their  efforts  with  those  of  the  ex- 
asperated nobility,  and  thus,  in  several  of  the  remote  sections  of  France,  mobs 
were  instigated  against  the  Revolution.  Here  commenced  the  conflict  be- 
tween the  people  and  the  clergy.  Pure  democracy  and  true  Christianity 
meet  and  embrace.  They  have  but  one  spirit — fraternity,  charity.  Despot- 
ism and  ecclesiasticism  are  also  natural  congenial  allies.  The  pope  and  the 
king,  the  cardinal  and  the  duke,  all  over  Europe  became  accomplices. 

The  Assembly,  with  much  dehcacy,  invited  the  king  himself  to  fix  the  in- 
come necessary  for  the  suitable  support  of  the  crown.  He  fixed  it  at  twen- 
ty-five millions  of  francs  ($5,000,000).     This  enormous  salary,  two  hundred 

*  M. Fromont,  in  his  memoirs  entitled  ^^ Recueil  de  divers  Ecrits  relatifs  a  la  Revolution,"  \&r\ 
frankly  writes,  "I  repaired  secretly  to  Turin  (January,  1790),  to  the  French  princes,  to  solicit 
their  approbation  and  their  support.  In  a  council  which  was  held  on  my  arrival,  I  demonstrated 
to  them  that,  if  they  would  arm  the  partisans  of  the  altar  and  of  the  throne,  and  make  the  inter- 
ests of  religion  go  hand  in  hand  with  those  of  royalty,  it  would  save  both.  The  real  argument 
of  the  revolutionists  being  force,  I  felt  that  the  real  answer  was  force.  Then,  as  at  present,  I  was 
convinced  of  this  great  truth — that  religious  zeal  alone  can  stifle  the  Rejnihlican  maiiia. 

"In  consequence  of  this  dread  (of  the  new  order  of  things),  they  secretly  set  at  work  the  most 
efficacious  means  for  ruining  the  internal  resources  and  for  thwarting  the  proposed  plans,  several 
of  which  were  calculated  to  effect  the  re-establLshment  of  order,  if  they  had  been  wisely  directed 
and  supported." 

M 


178  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XIX. 

times  as  much  as  the  President  of  the  United  States  receives,  was  instantly 
voted  by  acclamation.  There  were  but  four  votes  in  opposition.  Nothing 
can  more  conclusively  show  than  this  the  kindly  feelings  of  the  people  to- 
ward the  monarch,  and  the  then  desire  merely  to  ingraft  the  institutions  of 
liberty  upon  the  monarchy. 

The  Revolution  had  humanely  extended  its  helping  hand  to  all  the  de- 
based and  defrauded  classes,  to  the  Protestants,  the  Jews,  the  negroes,  the 
slaves,  the  play-actors.  The  relentless  proscription  of  play-actors  is  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  of  the  contradictions  and  outrages  of  the  old  regime. 
They  were  doubtless  a  very  worthless  set  of  men  and  women ;  but  that  the 
Church  should  have  refused  them  either  marriage  or  burial  is  indeed  extra- 
ordinary. "  Oh,  barbarous  prejudices !"  exclaimed  Michelet.  "  The  two  first 
men  of  England  and  France,  the  author  of  Othello  and  of  Tariufe,  were  they 
not  comedians  ?" 

Notwithstanding  the  general  decree  of  democratic  enfranchisement  pro- 
nounced by  the  Assembly,  the  world-renowned  Talma,  having  applied  to 
the  Church  for  the  rite  of  marriage,  which  the  Church  alone  could  solem- 
nize, met  with  a  peremptory  refusal.  He  sent  the  following  characteristic 
petition  to  the  National  Assembly : 

"  I  implore  the  succor  of  the  constitutional  law,  and  claim  the  rights  of  a 
citizen,  from  which  rights  the  Constitution  does  not  exclude  me  because  1 
am  a  member  of  the  theatrical  profession.  I  have  chosen  a  companion  to 
whom  I  wish  to  be  united  by  the  ties  of  marriage.  My  father  has  given  his 
consent.  I  have  called  upon  the  cure  of  St.  Sulpice  for  the  publication  of 
the  banns.  After  a  first  refusal  I  have  served  upon  him  a  judicial  summons^ 
He  replies  to  the  sheriff  that  he  has  referred  the  matter  to  his  ecclesiastical 
superiors,  and  is  instructed  by  them  that  the  Church  refuses  to  perform  the 
rites  of  marriage  for  a  play-actor  unless  he  first  renounces  that  profession. 
I  can,  it  is  true,  renounce  my  profession,  be  married,  and  resume  my  profes- 
sion again  the  next  day.  But  I  do  not  wish  to  show  myself  unworthy  of 
that  religion  which  they  invoke  against  me,  and  unworthy  of  the  Constitu- 
tion in  thus  accusing  your  decrees  of  error  and  your  laws  of  powerlessness."* 

It  was  in  such  ways  as  these  that  the  Romish  Church  began  to  throw 
every  possible  obstacle  in  the  way  of  liberty,  and  to  exasperate  the  people, 
rejoicing  in  their  new  enfranchisement. 

It  was  a  long  stride  which  Napoleon  took  when  he  subsequently  con- 
ferred the  Cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  upon  an  illustrious  tragedian.  "  My 
object,"  says  Napoleon,  "was  to  destroy  the  whole  of  the  feudal  system  as 
organized  by  Charlemagne.  I  sought  for  true  merit  among  all  ranks  of  the 
great  mass  of  French  people,  and  was  anxious  to  organize  a  true  and  general 
system  of  eciuality.  I  was  desirous  that  every  Frenchman  sliould  be  admis- 
sible to  all  the  employments  and  dignities  of  the  state,  provided  he  was  pos- 
sessed of  talents  and  character  equal  to  the  performance  of  the  duties,  what- 
ever might  Ijo  his  f  imily.  In  a  word,  I  was  eager  to  abolish  to  the  last  trace 
the  privileges  of  the  ancient  nobility,  and  to  establish  a  government  which, 
at  the  same  time  that  it  held  the  reins  of  government  with  a  firm  liand. 

"  "There  is  no  country  in  the  worKl,"  savs  Voliaire,  "where  there  nre  so  many  contrndic- 
lions  OH  in  Franco.     The  king  giveH  the  acton,  wages,  nnd  the  curd  excoramnnicates'thcm.' 


1790.]  THE  KING  ACCEPTS  THE  CONSTITUTION.  179 

should  still  be  a  popular  government.  The  oligarclis  of  every  country  in  Eu- 
rope soon  perceived  my  design,  and  it  was  for  this  reason  that  war  to  the 
death  was  carried  on  against  me  by  England.  The  noble  families  of  Lon- 
don, as  well  as  those  of  Vienna,  think  themselves  prescriptively  entitled  to 
the  occupation  of  all  the  important  ofl&ces  in  the  state.  Their  birth  is  re- 
garded by  them  as  a  substitute  for  talents  and  capacities." 

Soon  after  Napoleon's  attainment  of  the  consulship  he  restored  to  France 
the  Christian  religion,  which  revolutionary  fury  had  swept  away.  In  con- 
sistency with  his  unvarying  principles,  he  established  perfect  freedom  of 
opinion  and  of  worship.  Some  of  the  reinstated  priests  began  to  assume 
much  of  their  former  arrogance.  A  celebrated  actress  died  in  Paris.  A 
priest,  adopting  the  intolerance  of  the  old  regime,  refused  her  remains  Chris- 
tian burial.  Napoleon  caused  the  following  article  to  be  inserted  the  next 
day  in  the  Moniteur,  expressive  of  his  emphatic  denunciation  : 

"  The  curate  of  St.  Eoche,  in  a  moment  of  hallucination,  has  refused  the 
rites  of  burial  to  Mademoiselle  Cameroi.  One  of  his  colleagues,  a  man  of 
sense,  received  the  procession  into  the  church  of  St.  Thomas,  where  the  buri- 
al service  was  performed  with  the  usual  solemnities.  The  Archbishop  of 
Paris  has  suspended  the  curate  of  St.  Roche  for  three  months,  to  give  him 
time  to  recollect  that  Jesus  Christ  commanded  us  to  pray  even  for  our  en- 
emies. Being  thus  called  b}^  meditation  to  a  proper  sense  of  his  duties,  he 
may  learn  that  all  these  superstitious  observances,  the  offspring  of  an  age  of 
credulity  or  of  crazed  imaginations,  tend  only  to  the  discredit  of  true  religion, 
and  have  been  proscribed  by  the  recent  Concordat  of  the  French  Church." 

The  trial  of  Marquis  Favrus  was  continued.  On  the  18th  of  February  he 
was  adjudged  guilty  of  plotting  the  crime  of  assassinating  Bailly  and  La  Fay- 
ette, of  seizing  and  abducting  the  king,  and  of  exciting  insurrection  and 
civil  war.  He  was  sentenced  to  be  taken  by  the  executioner  to  the  principal 
door  of  the  Cathedral  of  Notre  Dame,  in  a  tumbrel,  barefooted,  bareheaded, 
and  dressed  simply  in  his  night-robe,  with  a  rope  round  his  neck,  a  blazing 
torch  in  his  hands,  and  with  a  label  on  his  breast  and  back  inscribed  with 
the  words  "  Conspirator  against  the  State."  After  having  on  his  knees  ask- 
ed pardon  of  God,  the  nation,  the  king,  and  justice,  he  was  to  read  aloud  his 
own  death-warrant,  and  then  to  be  taken  to  the  Place  de  Gr^ve  and  hanged. 
This  cruel  sentence  was  immediately  executed,  the  court,  conscious  of  its 
powerlessness,  making  no  attempts  to  save  him. 

This  was  the  first  time  that  a  nobleman  had  been  hanged,  and  the  mob, 
deeming  him  an  infamous  conspirator  against  the  rights  of  the  people,  re- 
joiced in  his  execution.  They  witnessed  with  delight  this  indication  that 
the  reign  of  equality  had  really  commenced ;  that  the  sword  of  retribution 
would  hereafter  fall  as  surely  upon  the  head  of  the  high-born  as  upon  that 
of  the  hio-horn  offender. 

It  was  now  nearly  a  year  since  the  fall  of  the  Bastille,  and  France,  even 
in  the  midst  of  famine,  and  almost  starvation,  had  passed  from  the  reign  of 
the  most  execrable  despotism  to  the  reign  of  constitutional  liberty.  Never 
before  had  so  vast  a  revolution  been  effected  so  peaceably.  The  enslaved 
people  had  broken  and  thrown  away  their  fetters,  and  were  enfranchised. 
Instead  of  falling  upon  their  past  oppressors  in  indiscriminate  massacre, 


180 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


[Chap.  XIX. 


TllK   MAKQUIB  OF   FA^TICS 


tlicy  bad  spared  them,  wresting  from  tliem  only  the  exclusive  privileges  of 
tyranny.  The  Assembly  sought  only  constitutional  liberty  and  peace  with 
all  the  world.  The  decrees  enacted  by  the  Constituent  Assembly  were  es- 
sentially the  same  with  those  adopted  by  republican  America. 

Free  principles  had  been  infused  into  the  government;  Idires  de  cachet, 
the  most  infamous  instruments  of  oppression  the  world  has  ever  known, 
abolished ;  feudal  impediments  and  oppressions  of  every  kind  removed ;  the 
right  of  suffrage  established  and  made  almost  universal ;  the  offices  of  honor 
and  emolument  in  the  state  thrown  open  to  merit,  with  but  the  slightest 
limitations;  religious  liberty  proclaimed,  the  Protestant,  the  Jew,  the  negro, 
and  the  play-actor  enfranchised;  law  made  uniform,  criminal  jurisprudence 
reformed,  moTiasteries,  those  haunts  of  indolence  and  vice,  abolished,  and  the 
military  force 'of  the  country  intrusted  to  the  citizens  of  the  country.  Such 
a  transformation  from  the  slavery,  corruption,  and  horror  of  the  old  regime, 


1790.]  THE  KING  ACCEPTS  THE  CONSTITUTION.  181 

was  translation  from  the  dungeon  to  the  blaze  of  day.  All  this  was  done 
almost  without  violence.  The  court  here  and  there  shot  down  a  few  hund- 
red, some  chateaux  were  burned,  and  there  were  a  few  acts  of  mob  violence ; 
but  that  a  nation  of  twenty  millions  of  people  should  have  been  able  to  ac- 
complish so  vast  a  change  so  bloodlessly  must  ever  be  a  marvel. 

But  the  armies  of  aristocratic  opposition  were  gathering  to  crush  this  lib- 
erty, which  threatened  to  spread  to  other  states.  Despotic  Europe  combined, 
and  with  all  her  accumulated  armies  fell  upon  the  people  of  France.  The 
recently  emancipated  people  fought  to  protect  themselves  from  new  chains 
with  all  the  blind  fury  and  ferocity  of  despair.  Then  ensued  scenes  of  blood 
and  woes  which  appalled  the  world.* 

The  French  people,  unconscious  of  the  terrific  storm  which  was  gathering, 
prepared  for  a  great  national  jubilee.  It  was  to  be  held  on  the  14th  of  July, 
the  anniversary  of  the  fall  of  the  Bastille.  All  France  was  to  be  represent- 
ed at  the  festival.  The  Field  of  Mars,  a  vast  parade-ground  in  Paris,  a  mile 
in  length  and  half  a  mile  in  width,  extending  from  the  military  school  to  the 
banks  of  the  Seine,  was  the  selected  theatre  for  this  national  festivity.  The 
centre  was  made  smooth  as  a  floor,  and  the  removed  earth  was  placed  on  the 
sides  so  as  to  create  slopes  in  the  form  of  an  amphitheatre  capable  of  accom- 
modating nearly  half  a  million  of  spectators.  But  so  immense  was  the  work 
to  be  performed,  that  at  length  apprehensions  were  felt  that  the  field  could 
not  be  in  readiness  in  season  for  the  appointed  fete.  No  sooner  was  this 
idea  suggested  than  all  Paris,  in  a  flame  of  enthusiasm,  volunteered  to  aid 
in  the  toil. 

A.  more  extraordinary  scene  of  enthusiasm  earth  has  never  witnessed. 
All  heads  and  hearts  were  electrified.  Men,  women,  and  children,  of  all 
ages  and  ranks,  spread  over  the  field  and  shared  in  the  toil.  The  Carthu- 
sian monk  and  the  skeptical  philosopher,  the  hooded  nun  and  the  brawny 
fish-woman,  merchants,  lawyers,  students,  scholars,  gray -haired  patriots,  and 
impetuous  boys,  matrons  and  maidens,  delicate  ladies  and  the  rugged  daugh- 
ters of  toil,  blended  harmoniously  together  in  immense  groups,  ever  varied, 
incessantly  moving,  yet  guided  by  engineers  with  almost  military  order  and 
precision.  Moving  tents  and  portable  restaurants,  decorated  with  tricolored 
ribbons,  added  to  the  gayety  of  the  spectacle.  Trumpets  sounded  the  charge 
against  banks  of  earth,  and  willing  hands  wielded  energetically  all  the  po- 
tent enginery  of  wheel-barrows,  hoes,  and  spades.  Bands  of  music  animat- 
ed and  enlivened  the  scene,  blended  with  shouts  of  joy  and  songs  of  frater- 
nal sympathy.  Three  hundred  thousand  persons  were  thus  seen  at  once  la- 
boring upon  this  spacious  arena  to  rear  an  altar  for  the  great  sacrament  of 
French  liberty.  It  was  a  work  of  love.  The  long  twilight  allowed  them  to 
labor  until  the  clock  struck  nine.  Then  the  groups  separated.  Each  indi- 
vidual repaired  to  the  station  of  his  section,  and  marched  in  procession,  ac- 
companied by  triumphal  music  and  with  the  illumination  of  torches,  to  his 

*  "The  whole  of  Europe — on  the  one  hand  Austria  and  Russia,  on  the  other  England  and 
Prussia — were  gradually  gravitating  toward  the  selfsame  thought,  the  hatred  of  the  Revolution. 
However,  there  was  this  difference,  that  liberal  England  and  philosophical  Prussia  needed  a  little 
time  in  order  to  pass  from  one  pole  to  the  other — to  prevail  upon  themselves  to  give  themselves 
the  lie,  to  abjure  and  disown  their  principles,  and  avow  that  they  were  the  enemies  of  liberty." — 
Micheki,  p.  327. 


182 


TUE  FRENCU  KEVOLUTION, 


[ClIAP.  XIX. 


home.  Even  the  Marquis  of  Ferri^res,  inveterate  Royalist  as  he  was,  can 
not  withhold  his  tribute  of  admiration  in  view  of  this  astonishing  drama. 
"The  mind  felt  sinking,"  says  he,  "  under  the  weight  of  a  delicious  intoxi- 
cation at  the  sight  of  a  whole  people  who  had  descended  again  to  the  sweet 
sentiments  of  a  primitive  fraternity." 


The  field  was  thus  prepared,  and  the  long-expected  day  arrived.  Numer- 
ous delegates  from  all  the  eighty -three  departments  of  France  had  come  up 
to  Paris  to  share  in  the  celebration  of  the  nation's  enfranchisement.  The 
morning  of  the  14th  dawned  dark  and  stormy.  Heavy  clouds  curtained  the 
sky  and  the  rain  fell  in  torrents.  Regardless  of  the  unpropitious  weather, 
at  an  early  hour  four  hundred  thousand  spectators  had  taken  their  seats  in 
the  vast  amphitheatre  three  miles  in  circuit. 

The  delegates,  twenty  thousand  in  number,  ranged  beneath  eighty-three 
banners,  emblematic  of  the  departments  of  France,  formed  in  line  on  the 
site  of  the  demcjlishcd  Bastille,  and,  with  a  very  magnificent  array  of  troops 
of  the  line,  sailors  of  the  royal  navy,  and  the  National  Guard,  marched 
through  the  thronged  and  garlanded  streets  of  St.  Martin,  St.  Denis,  and  St. 
Ilonord,  and  by  the  Cours  la  Rcine  to  a  bridge  of  boats  constructed  across 
the  river.  All  the  way  they  were  greeted  with  acclamations,  and  the  ladies 
regaled  them  sumptuously  by  letting  down  in  btuskets  from  the  windows 
wine,  ham,  and  fruits.  I^he  country  members  shouted  *'  Long  live  our  Par- 
isian bnjthcrs !"  and  the  Parisians  responded  with  accordant  greetings  and 
with  exuberant  hospitality  and  loving-kindness. 


1790.]  THE  KING  ACCEPTS  THE  CONSTITUTION.  183 

To  the  patriot  La  Fayette  tliis  was  an  hour  of  inexpressible  triumph.  As 
he  rode  along  the  lines  on  a  noble  charger  he  was  every  where  greeted  with 
shouts  of  heartfelt  affection.  A  man  whom  nobody  knew  pressed  through 
the  crowd,  and,  approaching  the  general,  with  a  bottle  in  one  hand  and  a 
glass  in  the  other,  said, 

"  General,  you  are  hot.     Take  a  glass." 

Eaising  the  bottle  he  filled  the  tumbler  and  presented  it  to  La  Fayette. 
The  marquis  took  the  glass,  fixed  his  eye  for  a  moment  upon  the  stranger, 
and  drank  the  wine  at  a  draught.  This  confidence  of  La  Fayette  in  the 
multitude  gave  rise  to  a  burst  of  applause.* 

Just  as  the  procession  had  entered  the  field,  and  the  shouts  of  the  congi^e- 
gated  thousands  were  ringing  through  the  air,  the  rain  ceased  to  fall,  the 
clouds  broke,  and  the  sun  came  out  in  glorious  brilliance.  The  spectacle 
now  assumed  an  aspect  of  unparalleled  sublimity.  Near  the  centre  of  the 
field  there  was  constructed  an  immense  altar  of  imposing  and  antique  archi- 
tecture, upon  whose  spacious  platform,  twenty-five  feet  high,  three  hundred 
priests  were  assembled,  in  white  surplices  and  broad  tricolored  sashes. 
JTear  this  altar  a  majestic  throne  was  reared,  where  the  king  sat,  the  ac- 
knowledged sovereign  of  France,  attended  by  the  queen,  the  court,  and  all 
the  deputies  of  that  Constituent  Assembly  which  had  conferred  the  inestima- 
ble boon  of  a  free  constitution  upon  France. 

An  awning,  decorated  with  golden  Jleurs  de  Us,  embellished  and  protected 
the  throne.  Fifty  thousand  of  the  National  Guard,  in  new  and  brilliant 
uniform,  with  waving  banners,  martial  bands,  glittering  arms,  and  richly- 
caparisoned  horses,  filled  the  spaces  around  the  altar  and  the  throne.  Then 
four  hundred  thousand  spectators  crowded  the  ascending  seats  which,  in 
thirty  concentric  rows,  encircled  this  vast  inclosure.  Every  house-top  and 
steeple  in  the  vicinity  swarmed  with  the  rejoicing  multitude;  and  even 
the  distant  heights  of  Montraartre,  St.  Cloud,  Meudon,  and  Sevres,  seemed 
alive  with  the  masses  assembled  to  witness  the  magnificent  spectacle.  Tear- 
drops from  the  passing  storm,  pendent  from  the  leaves,  and  trembling  on 
every  blade  of  grass,  glittered  in  the  sun,  as  if  betokening  that  the  day  of 
darkness  and  sorrow  had  passed,  and  that  light  had  dawned,  in  which  tears 
were  to  be  dried  from  every  eye. 

All  hearts  thrilled  with  emotion.  Mass  was  performed,  and  the  oriflamme. 
the  national  banner  of  France,  and  the  banners  of  the  eighty-three  depart- 
ments, were  blessed  by  Talleyrand,  Bishop  of  Autun.  Gratitude  to  God 
was  then  expressed  in  the  majestic  Te  Deum,  chanted  by  twelve  hundred 
musicians.  A  peal  of  thunder  from  the  assembled  cannon  uttered  the  na- 
tional Amen  to  these  solemn  services. 

La  Fayette,  as  the  representative  of  the  military  forces  of  the  kingdom, 
both  by  land  and  sea,  now  ascended  the  altar,  and,  in  the  presence  of  more 
than  half  a  million  of  spectators,  in  behalf  of  the  army  and  of  the  nav}^,  took 
the  oath  of  allegiance.  Breathless  silence  pervaded  the  assembly,  and  every 
eye  was  riveted  upon  this  patriot  of  two  continents,  while  he  uttered  the 
solemn  words, 

"  We  swear  eternal  fidelity  to  the  nation,  the  law,  and  the  king ;  to  main- 

*  Memoirs  of  the  Marqnis  of  Ferrieres. 


184  THE  FRENCH  KEVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XIX. 

tain,  to  the  utmost  of  our  power,  the  Constitution  decreed  by  the  National 
Assembly  and  accepted  by  the  king,  and  to  remain  united  with  every 
Frenchman  by  the  indissoluble  ties  of  fraternity." 

When  he  closed,  every  banner  waved,  every  sabre  gleamed,  and  sixty 
thousand  voices  shouted,  as  with  thunder  peal,  "We  swear  it!" 

The  president  of  the  National  Assembly  then  repeated  the  oath,  and  all 
the  deputies  and  the  four  hundred  thousand  sjjectators  responded,  "We 
swear  it." 

The  king  then  rose  in  front  of  his  throne.  In  a  loud,  distinct  voice,  which 
seemed  to  vibrate  through  the  still  air  to  the  remotest  jDart  of  the  vast  and 
thronged  amphitheatre,  he  repeated  the  solemn  oath, 

"  I,  King  of  the  French,  swear  to  the  nation  to  employ  all  the  powers 
delegated  to  me  by  the  constitutional  law  of  the  state  in  maintaining  the 
Constitution  decreed  by  the  National  Assembly  and  accepted  by  me." 

A  more  sublime  moment  never  occurred  in  a  nation's  history.     Every 


^W-^ 


UltAMl  CKUeUKATlUN   U.N    TUK   I'lKLU  OV 


1790.]  THE  KING  ACCEPTS  THE  CONSTITUTION.  185 

lieart  throbbed,  and  thousands  of  eyes  were  dimmed  with  tears.  Even  the 
queen  was  roused  by  the  enthusiasm  of  the  scene.  Inspired  by  the  impulse 
which  glowed  in  every  bosom,  she  rose,  stepped  forward  into  the  presence 
of  the  people,  and,  raising  her  beautiful  boy,  the  little  dauphin,  in  her  arms, 
said,  in  a  loud  voice, 

"  See  my  son !  he  joins,  as  well  as  myself,  in  the  same  oath." 

Every  eye  beheld  the  act,  and  the  words  she  uttered  were  repeated  with 
electric  speed  along  the  lines.  Enthusiasm  burst  all  bounds.  The  specta- 
tors rose  from  their  seats,  and  the  air  was  filled  with  the  roar  of  five  hund- 
red thousand  voices,  as  every  man,  woman,  and  child  shouted,  "Vive  Ic 
Eoi!  Yive  la  Eeine!  Vive  le  Dauphin!"  The  crowds  on  Montmartre,  St. 
Cloud,  Sevres,  and  Meudon  caught  the  shout,  and  re-echoed  it  in  tumultu- 
ous reverberations.  And  then  came  another  peal  still  louder,  as  battery 
after  battery  of  artillery,  on  the  field,  on  the  bridges,  in  the  streets,  and  on 
the  heights,  simultaneously  mingled  their  majestic  voices  with  the  clash  of 
martial  bands  and  the  acclaim  of  regenerated  France. 

God  seemed  to  smile  upon  this  jubilee  of  his  enfranchised  children.  The 
clouds  had  all  disappeared.  The  sun  shone  brilliantly,  and  the  Majesty  of 
heaven  apparently  condescended  to  take  a  prominent  part  in  the  ceremo- 
nies of  the  eventful  day.  In  conclusion,  the  Te  Deum  was  again  chanted  by 
the  vast  choir,  and  the  deep- voiced  cannon  proclaimed  "Peace  to  the  na- 
tion and  praise  to  the  Lord," 

At  the  same  hour  all  France,  assembled  in  the  eighty-three  departments, 
took  the  same  oath  of  fidelity  to  the  nation,  the  law,  and  the  king.  Discord 
seemed  to  have  passed  away.  No  murmurs  were  heard.  No  man  raised  a 
voice  of  opposition.  The  general  tide  of  rejoicing  swept  resistlessly  over 
the  land.  From  mountain  to  mountain  the  roar  of  cannon  transmitted  the 
tidings,  from  valley  to  valley  chimes  from  the  church  bells  caught  and  re- 
echoed the  joyful  sound,  and  from  central  Paris  to  the  ocean,  to  the  Ehine, 
to  the  Alps,  and  to  the  Pyrenees,  twenty-four  millions  of  people  in  one  hour 
raised  the  shout  of  emancipation.  Such  a  shout  never  before  or  since  has 
ascended  from  earth  to  the  ear  of  God. 

For  a  week  these  rejoicings  were  continued  in  Paris.  The  Field  of  Mars 
was  converted  into  an  immense  ball-room,  where  thousands  listened  to  en- 
chanting music,  and  with  the  overflowings  of  fraternal  love  engaged  in  feast- 
ing, dancing,  and  all  manner  of  games.  At  night  the  city  blazed  with  il- 
luminations, and  the  flame  of  fireworks  turned  darkness  into  day.  The  trees 
of  the  Elysian  Fields  were  festooned  with  brilliant  lamps,  shedding  a  mild 
light  upon  the  most  attractive  of  scenes.  There  was  no  intoxication,  no  tu- 
mult, no  confusion.  All  classes  intermingled,  with  kind  words  on  every  lip 
and  kind  looks  beaming  from  every  face.  No  carriages  were  permitted  to 
enter  these  avenues,  that  the  rich  and  the  poor  might  share  the  festivities 
alike.  Pyramids  of  fire  were  placed  at  intervals  in  the  midst  of  the  mass  of 
foliage.  The  white  dresses  of  the  ladies  who  were  sauntering  through  those 
umbrageous  alleys,  the  music,  the  dances,  the  games,  the  shouts  of  laughter, 
led  almost  every  one  to  the  delusive  hope  that  the  old  world  of  care  and 
sorrow  had  vanished  to  give  place  to  a  new  era  of  universal  love  and  joy.* 

*  No  one  familiar  with  the  writings  of  that  day  will  affirm  that  this  description  is  too  highly 


186 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


[ClIAP.  XIX. 


The  site  of  the  Bastille  was  converted  into  an  open  square,  and  at  the  en- 
trance of  the  inclosure  was  an  inscription  ^^  Ici  Ton  danse''  (Dancing  here). 
For  centuries  the  groans  of  the  captive  had  resounded  through  the  vaults  of 
that  odious  prison.  The  groans  had  now  ceased,  and  happy  hearts  throbbed 
with  the  excitement  of  the  song  and  the  dance. 

La  Fayette  gave  a  splendid  review  of  the  National  Guard.  The  king,  the 
queen,  and  the  dauphin  attended  the  review,  and  were  warmly  greeted  by 
the  people.  The  queen  assumed  the  attitude  of  reconciliation,  and  gracious- 
ly presented  her  hand  to  the  delegates  to  kiss. 

The  delegates  from  the  departments,  before  they  left  Paris,  went  in  a  body 
to  present  their  homage  to  the  king.  With  one  voice  they  expressed  to  him 
their  respect,  gratitude,  and  affection.  The  chief  of  the  Bretons  dropped  on 
his  knee  and  presented  to  the  monarch  his  sword. 

"  Sire,"  said  he,  "  I  deliver  to  you,  pure  and  sacred,  the  sword  of  the  faith- 
ful Bretons.  It  shall  never  be  stained  but  with  the  blood  of  your  ene- 
mies." 


ANU   THE   Ulil'UTATlON    OP   THE  URETONH. 


The  heart  of  the  kind-hearted  king  was  touched.  He  returned  the  sword, 
and,  throwing  his  arms  around  the  neck  of  the  chief  of  the  Bretons,  said,  in 
tones  broken  with  emotion, 

"That  sword  can  not  be  in  better  hands  than  those  of  my  dear  Bretons. 

drawn.     Vy>on  this  point  PntriotH  nnd  Royalists  nprco.     Sec  Fcrritrcs,  t.  ii.,  p.  80,  on  the  part  of 
the  RoyuliHts,  and  Aljihouuc  Esqiiiros,  p.  38,  on  the  part  of  the  Revolutionists. 


1790.]  THE  KING  ACCEPTS  THE  CONSTITUTION.  187 

I  have  never  doubted  their  fidelity  and  aifection.     Assure  them  that  I  am 
the  father,  the  brother,  the  friend  of  all  the  French." 

For  a  moment  there  was  silence,  and  all  alike  were  moved  by  the  affect- 
ing scene.     The  chief  of  the  Bretons  then  rejoined, 

"Sire,  all  the  French,  if  I  may  judge  from  our  hearts,  love  and  will  love 
you  because  you  are  a  citizen-king." 

Many  of  the  most  influential  men  in  England  contemplated  with  admira- 
tion this  immense  reform,  in  which,  to  use  the  language  of  Professor  William 
Smyth,  one  of  the  most  candid  of  English  writers,  "  the  Constituent  Assem- 
bly was  supposed  to  have  freed  the  country  from  temporal  and  spiritual 
thraldom ;  the  government  had  been  rested  on  free  principles ;  the  Bastille 
had  been  destroyed,  lettres  de  cachet  abolished,  feudal  impediments  and  op- 
pressions of  every  kind  removed,  religious  liberty  established,  the  system 
of  law  made  uniform,  the  criminal  jurisprudence  reformed,  monasteries 
abolished ;  and  by  making  the  military  force  consist  of  the  citizens  of  the 
country,  freedom,  and  all  those  new  and  weighty  advantages,  seemed  to  be 
forever  secured  from  the  machinations  of  arbitrary  power." 

The  aristocracy,  however,  of  England  and  Europe  were  struck  with  alarm. 
The  emancipation  of  the  i^eoi^le  in  France  threatened  their  emancipation 
throughout  the  civilized  world.  Edmund  Burke  espoused  the  cause  of  the 
aristocracy.  With  eloquence  quite  unparalleled  he  roused  England  and 
Europe  to  war.  In  view  of  his  fierce  invectives  Michelet  exclaims,  in  lan- 
guage which  will  yet  be  pronounced  by  the  world  as  not  too  severe, 

"  Mr.  Pitt,  feeling  sure  of  the  European  alliance,  did  not  hesitate  to  say  in 
open  parliament  that  he  approved  of  every  word  of  Burke's  diatribe  against 
the  Kevolution  and  against  France — an  infamous  book,  full  of  calumny,  scur- 
rilous abuse,  and  insulting  buffoonery ;  in  which  the  author  compares  the 
French  to  galley-slaves  breaking  their  chains,  treads  under  foot  the  declara- 
tion of  the  rights  of  man,  tears  it  in  pieces  and  spits  upon  it.  Oh  !  what  a 
cruel,  painful  discovery.  Those  whom  we  thought  our  friends  are  our  most 
bitter  enemies."* 

Thirty  thousand  copies  of  Burke's  memorable  "  Eeflections"  were  sold  al- 
most in  a  day.  The  sovereigns  of  Europe  were  so  highly  elated  that  they 
transmitted  to  him  their  thanks.  The  nobles  and  the  higher  clergy  of  France 
wrote  to  him  letters  of  acknowledgment,  and  the  nobility  of  England  lavish- 
ed upon  him  their  applause.  These  "Eeflections"  combined  aristocratic 
Europe  against  popular  rights,  and  the  people  had  no  resource  left  them  but 
to  defend  their  liberties  with  the  sword. 

*  Mchelet's  Frencli  Eevolution,  p.  415. 


lyg  THE  FliEXCH  ItEVULUllON.  [CUAP.  XX. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

FLIGHT  OF  THE   KING. 

Kiot  at  Nancy.— Prosecntion  of  Mirabeau.— Issue  of  Assignats.— Mirabeau's  Interview  with  the 
Queen.— Four  political  Parties.— Bishops  refuse  to  take  the  Oath  to  the  Constitution.— Char- 
acter of  the  Einiprants.— The  King's  Aunts  attempt  to  leave  France.— Debates  upon  Emigra- 
tion.— Embarrassment  of  the  Assembly.— Death  of  Mirabeau.— His  Fuucral.— The  King  pre- 
vented from  visiting  St.  Cloud.— Duplicity  of  the  King.— Conference  of  the  Allies.— Their 
Plan  of  Invasion.— Measures  for  the  Escape  of  the  King.— The  Flight. 

The  grand  gala  days,  in  tlie  Field  of  Mars,  celebrating  the  formation  of 
the  Constitution,  soon  passed.  The  twenty  thousand  delegates,  having  been 
feted  even  to  satiety,  returned  to  their  homes ;  the  Constituent  Assembly 
resumed  its  labors.*  The  cares  and  toils  of  life  again  pressed  heavily  upon 
the  tax-exhausted  and  impoverished  millions  of  France. 

The  Belgians,  in  imitation  of  France,  had  commenced  a  struggle  for  free- 
dom. The  King  of  France  permitted  Austria  to  send  her  troops  across  the 
French  territory  into  Belgium  to  crush  the  patriots.  Many  of  the  most  in- 
fluential of  the  opponents  of  the  Revolution  were  still  leaving  France  and 
uniting  with  the  armed  emigrants  on  the  frontiers.  England,  Austria,  Sar- 
dinia, and  Prussia  were  manifestly  forming  an  alliance  to  punish  the  French 
patriots,  and  to  restore  the  tyranny  of  the  execrable  old  regime.  The  court, 
emboldened  by  these  proceedings,  were  boasting  of  the  swift  destruction 
which  was  to  overwhelm  the  advocates  of  reform,  and  commenced  a  prose- 
cution of  Mirabeau,  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  and  others  of  the  popular  party, 
for  instigating  the  movement  of  the  5th  and  6th  of  October,  when  the  royal 
family  were  taken  from  Versailles  to  Paris.  These  movements  created 
much  alarm,  and  even  the  royal  troops  at  Metz  and  Nancy,  who  were  most- 
ly composed  of  Swiss  and  Germans,  fraternized  with  the  populace. 

A  new  issue  of  eight  hundred  millions  of  bonds  or  assigiiafs  was  decreed, 
which  quite  abundantly  replenished  the  treasury.  There  was  never  a  paper 
currency  created  upon  so  valuable  a  pledge,  or  sustained  by  security  more 
ample  and  undoubted.  The  assignats  represented  the  whole  public  domain, 
and  could  at  any  time  be  exchanged  for  the  most  valuable  landed  property. 
Still,  Talleyrand  with  singular  precision  predicted  the  confusion  which 
eventually  resulted  from  these  issues. 

In  the  majestic  march  of  events,  Necker  had  for  some  time  been  passing 
into  oblivion.  The  king  had  been  forced  to  recall  him.  Hated  by  the 
court,  neglected  by  the  Assembly,  forgotten  by  the  people,  he  soon  found 
his  situation  insupportable,  and,  sending  in  his  resignation,  retired  to  Switz- 

*  "  I  have  road  many  liistories  (if  rcvdlutions,  and  can  nflirm  what  a  Royalist  avowed  in  1701, 
that  never  had  any  great  revolution  costless  bloodshed  and  wecjiing.  In  reality,  only  one  cla.ss, 
the  clergy,  was  able,  with  any  ai)i)carance  of  truth,  to  call  itself  robbed ;  and,  nevertheless,  the 
result  of  that  spoliation  was,  that  the  great  bulk  of  the  clergy,  starved  under  the  old  system  for 
the  eniuliunent  of  n  few  prelates,  had  at  length  a  comfortable  livelihood." — MlvheLt,  p.  417. 


1790.]  FLIGHT  OF  THE  KING.  189 

erland,  from  wliicli  safe  retreat  lie  watched  the  terrific  gatherings  of  the  rev- 
olutionary storm. 

Civil  war  was  sure  to  break  out  the  moment  the  court  could  obtain  pos- 
session of  the  person  of  the  king.  The  pliant  nature  of  the  monarch  would 
immediately  yield  to  the  influences  which  surrounded  him,  and  the  court, 
under  such  circumstances,  could  find  no  difficulty  in  inducing  him  to  sanc- 
tion any  acts  of  violence  to  regain  their  power.  But  while  the  king  was  in 
Paris,  in  the  hands  of  the  Assembly,  he  would  sanction  the  decrees  of  the 
Assembly,  and  thus  the  aristocrats  could  not  wage  war  against  the  patriots 
without  at  the  same  time  waging  war  against  the  king.  Foreign  monarchies 
could  not  be  induced  to  take  this  step.  Thus  the  retention  of  the  king  was 
peace ;  his  escape,  civil  war.  The  court  were  plotting  innumerable  plans  to 
effect  his  escape.  La  Fayette,  at  the  head  of  the  National  Guard,  was  fully 
awake  to  the  responsibility  of  guarding  him  with  the  utmost  vigilance.  The 
king  was  apparently  left  at  perfect  liberty,  but  he  was  continually  watched. 
The  queen  was  exceedingly  anxious  for  flight.  The  king  was  ever  vacil- 
lating, but  generally,  influenced  by  such  advisers  as  Mirabeau  and  La  Fay- 
ette, inclined  to  accept  the  Revolution.  He  was  also  haunted  with  the  idea 
that  his  cousin,  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  wished  to  frighten  him  into  flight,  that 
the  Assembly  might  declare  the  throne  vacant,  and  place  the  sceptre  in  the 
duke's  hand  as  the  sworn  friend  and  supporter  of  the  Revolution. 

Mirabeau  had  commenced  his  career  as  one  of  the  most  ardent  advocates 
of  reform,  but  he  now  wished  to  arrest  the  progress  of  the  revolutionary  char- 
iot, as  he  affirmed  that  it  had  passed  beyond  its  proper  goal.  His  course  was 
attributed  by  some  to  bribery  on  the  part  of  the  court.  His  friends  say  that 
he  was  only  influenced  by  his  own  patriotic  intelligence.  At  St.  Cloud  there 
is  a  retired  summer-house,  embowered  in  foliage,  at  the  summit  of  a  hill 
which  crowns  the  highest  part  of  the  park.  The  queen  appointed  an  inter- 
view with  Mirabeau  at  this  secluded  spot. 

The  statesman  of  gigantic  genius,  who  seemed  to  hold  in  his  hand  the  des- 
tinies of  France,  left  Paris  on  horseback  one  evening,  under  pretense  of  vis- 
iting a  friend.  Avoiding  observation,  he  turned  aside  into  a  by-path  until 
he  reached  a  back  gate  of  the  park.  Here  he  was  met  in  the  dark  by  a  no- 
bleman, who  conducted  him  to  the  retreat  of  the  queen,  who  was  waiting  to 
receive  him.  His  constitution  was  already  undermined  by  dissipation  and 
unintermitted  labors.  His  cheeks  were  sunken,  his  eyes  inflamed,  his  com- 
plexion sallow,  and  a  flabby  corpulency  announced  the  ravages  of  disease ; 
but,  notwithstanding  all  these  defects,  his  genial  spirit  and  courtly  bearing 
made  him  one  of  the  most  fascinating  of  men.* 

The  queen  was  then  thirty-five  years  of  age.  Care  and  grief  had  sadly 
marred  her  marvelous  beauty.  Her  proud  spirit  was  chagrined  in  being 
compelled  to  look  for  support  to  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  people.  But  little 
is  known  respecting  what  passed  at  this  private  interview.  At  its  close 
Mirabeau  said  to  the  queen, 

*  "If  I  had  never  lived  with  Mirabeau,"  says  Dumont,  "I  should  never  have  known  what  a 
man  can  make  of  one  day — what  things  may  be  placed  within  the  interval  of  twelve  hours.  A 
day  for  this  man  is  more  than  a  week  or  a  month  is  for  others.  The  mass  of  things  he  guided  on 
together  was  prodigious;  from  the  scheming  to  the  executing,  not  a  moment  lost." — Dtiniont, 
p.  311. 


190  THE  FRENCn  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XX. 

"  Madam,  when  your  august  mother  admitted  one  of  her  subjects  to  the 
honor  of  lier  presence,  she  never  dismissed  him  without  allowing  him  to  kiss 
her  hand." 

The  queen,  responding  to  the  gallantry,  graciously  presented  her  hand. 
Mirabeau,  bowing  profoundly,  kissed  it,  and  then,  raising  his  head,  said 
proudly, 

''  Madam,  the  monarchy  is  saved."* 

Suddenly  Mirabeau  became  rich,  set  up  a  carriage,  furnished  his  house 
sumptuously,  and  gave  magnificent  entertainments.  He  immediately  com- 
menced a  course  of  cautious  but  vigorous  measures  to  overthrow  the  Consti- 
tution and  establish  one  less  democratic,  which  should  give  more  stability 
and  efficiency  to  the  royal  power.  He  affirmed  that  this  was  essential  to 
the  peace  and  prosperity  of  France,  and  that,  instead  of  being  bought  over 
by  the  court,  he  had  bought  the  court  over  to  his  views, 

"  But  suppose  the  court  refuses,"  said  one  of  his  friends,  "  to  adopt  vour 
plans?" 

"  They  have  promised  me  every  thing,"  Mirabeau  replied, 

"  But  suppose  they  should  not  keep  their  word  ?"  it  was  rejoined. 

"  Then,"  said  Mirabeau,  "  I  will  overthrow  the  throne  and  establish  a  re- 
public." 

It  can  hardly  be  denied  that  the  Constitution  was  too  democratic  for  a 
monarchy  and  hardly  democratic  enough  for  a  republic.  In  the  natural 
course  of  events  public  opinion  would  sway  either  to  strengthening  the 
throne  or  to  diminish  still  more  its  prerogatives.  There  were  now  four 
parties  in  France,  The  first  consisted  of  the  old  aristocratic  classes  of  the 
clergy  and  the  nobles,  now  mostly  emigrants,  and  busy  in  effecting  a  coali- 
tion of  surrounding  monarchies  to  quell  the  Eevolution,  and  by  fire  and 
sword  to  reinstate  the  rejected  despotism  of  the  Bourbons. 

The  second  class  was  composed  of  the  king  and  Mirabeau,  with  the  queen 
reluctantly  assenting  to  its  principles,  and  others  of  the  nobles  and  priests 
who  were  disposed,  some  from  choice  and  others  from  the  consciousness  of 
necessity,  partially  to  accept  the  Eevolution.  They  were  willing  to  adopt  a 
constitution  which  should  seriously  limit  the  old  prerogatives  of  the  crown. 
But  they  wished  to  repudiate  the  constitution  now  adopted,  and  to  form  one 
less  democratic,  which  would  still  grant  many  prerogatives  to  the  king. 

The  third  party  consisted  of  the  great  majority  of  the  Assembly,  headed 
by  sincere  and  guileless  patriots  like  La  Fayette,  and  sustained  i)robably  by 
the  great  majority  of  the  purest  and  best  men  in  the  kingdom,  who  were  in 
favor  of  the  constitution  which  the  nation  had  accepted.  While  they  did 
not  regard  it  as  perfect,  they  felt  that  it  was  a  noble  advance  in  the  right 
direction,  and  that  the  salvation  of  the  liberties  of  France  now  dcjiended 
upon  allegiance  to  this  constitution. 

There  was  a  fourth  class,  restless,  tumultuous,  uninformed,  composed  of 
the  lowest  j^ortion  of  the  populace,  who  could  ever  be  roused  to  phrensy  by 
the  cry  of  "  Aristocracy,"  who  were  ripe  for  any  deeds  of  violence,  and  who 
regarded  that  firnmcss  of  law  whicli  protected  order,  property,  and  life  as 
lyvanny,  Tluy  occiii)icd  the  lowest  possible  ].latlbrm  of  democracy. 
*  Michclet,  p.  aa3. 


1790.]  FLIGHT  OF  THE  KING.  191 

Such  was  the  condition  of  France  as  the  Constituent  Assembly  now  en- 
deavored to  consolidate  the  new  institutions  and  to  bring  harmony  from  the 
chaos  into  which  the  nation  had  been  plunged.  While  in  these  circum- 
stances of  unparalleled  peril,  combined  Europe  was  watching  for  an  oppor- 
tunity to  pounce  upon  the  distracted  nation. 

All  public  functionaries  were  required  to  take  oath  to  the  new  constitu- 
tion. The  clergy,  as  bound  by  the  laws  of  the  Eomish  Church,  appealed  to 
the  Pope  for  instructions.  At  the  same  time  the  opposing  bishops  and  no- 
bles wrote  to  the  Pope  urging  him  to  withhold  his  assent.*  The  king  had 
sanctioned  the  decrees.  The  Pope,  under  various  pretexts,  postponed  an 
answer.  Many  of  the  bishops  and  curates  consequently  refused  to  take  the 
oath.  The  Assembly  was  not  disposed  to  wait  for  the  decision  of  a  foreign 
potentate,  and,  accepting  those  bishops  and  curates  who  took  the  oath,  im- 
mediately nominated  new  bishops  and  curates  to  take  the  place  of  those  who 
refused.  Justly  and  frankly  the  Assembly  declared  that  it  wished  to  do  no 
violence  to  conscience,  but  that  it  could  not  appoint  as  public  functionaries 
those  men  who  refused  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  Constitution  of 
the  kingdom.  This  increased  exasperation,  and  enabled  many  of  the  bishops 
to  appeal  to  the  fanatic  populace  to  rise  in  defense  of  the  endangered  Church. 

The  emigrants  now  made  a  general  rendezvous  at  Coblentz,  in  the  terri- 
tory of  the  Elector  of  Treves,  and  at  other  points  of  the  frontier.f  These 
men,  composing  what  was  called  the  court,  consisted  mainly  of  the  high- 
er nobles  who  had  long  been  pampered  with  the  favors  of  the  monarch}^, 
and  who  looked  with  contempt  upon  the  nobles  of  the  rural  districts. 
Haughty,  dissolute,  and  frivolous,  they  scorned  any  appeal  to  the  popular 
arm,  even  to  popular  fanaticism  for  support.  The  only  recourse  to  which 
they  would  condescend  were  the  armies  of  England,  Austria,  and  Prussia. 
The  rural  nobles,  on  the  other  hand,  and  the  rural  bishops,  were  secretly  or- 
ganizing their  friends  within  the  kingdom  to  fall  fiercely  in  civil  war  upon 
the  patriots  so  soon  as  the  solid  battalions  of  the  allies  should  cross  the 
frontiers.":}: 

In  this  state  of  things  the  king's  aunts  decided  to  leave  France.  They 
had  proceeded  in  their  carriage  on  the  way  to  Kome  as  far  as  Arnay-le-Duc, 
when  they  were  arrested.  The  feverish  state  of  the  public  mind  led  to  sus- 
picions that  their  emigration  might  accelerate  impending  perils.  The  As- 
sembly took  the  matter  into  deliberation  whether  the  ladies  should  be  per- 
mitted to  depart.     The  question  was  settled  by  a  keen  sally  of  Menou. 

*  Thiers,  vol.  i.,  p.  166.     Ferrieres,  t.  ii.,  p.  198. 

t  "  Many  of  the  emigrants  had  joined  the  army  in  a  state  of  complete  destitntion.  Others 
were  spending  improvidently  the  last  relics  of  their  fortunes.  All  were  in  good  spirits,  for  the 
camp  life  was  free  and  joyous.  They  confidently  believed  that  the  end  of  autumn  would  find 
them  restored  to  their  splendid  homes,  to  their  groves,  to  their  forests,  and  to  their  dove-cots." 
—  C/iateaubr land's  Memoirs  of  the  I)uhe  de  Berri. 

%  See  Recueil  de  divers  Jlcrits  relatif  a  la  Kevolution,  p.  62;  also  Chateaubriand's  Memoirs 
of  the  Duke  de  Berri. 

In  reference  to  England  Michelet  remarks,  with  much  truth  :  "The  first  power  is  aristocracy, 
the  second  aristocracy,  and  the  third  aristocracy.  This  aristocracy  goes  on  incessantly  recruiting 
its  body  witii  all  those  who  grow  rich.  To  be  rich  in  order  to  be  noble  is  the  absorbing  thought 
of  the  Englishman.  Property,  specially  territorial  and  feudal,  is  the  religion  of  the  country." — 
MichelcVs  French  Revolution,  p.  432. 


192 


THE  FREXCU  REVOLUTION. 


[Chap.  XX. 


MOB   OW081NG   TUB   FLIOIIT  OF   THE   KING  8   AUNTS. 


"  All  Europe,"  said  he,  "  will  be  astonislied  to  learn  tliat  a  great  Assem- 
bly has  spent  several  days  in  deciding  whether  two  old  ladies  shall  hear 
mass  at  Paris  or  at  Rome." 

The  worthy  ladies  continued  the  journey  without  interruption.  The 
king's  next  elder  brother,  usually  called  Monsieur,  subsequently  Louis 
XVIII.,  remained  with  the  king  in  Paris.  The  next  brother,  however,  the 
Count  d'Artois,  subsequently  Charles  X.,  was  actively  participating  with  the 
emigrants  at  Coblcntz.  The  very  difficult  question  respecting  emigration 
was  now  brought  forward  in  the  Assembly.  It  seemed  to  be  a  gross  act  of 
tyranny  to  prohibit  French  citizens  from  withdrawing  from  or  entering 
France  at  their  pleasure.  On  the  other  hand  the  enemies  of  regenerated 
France  were  daily  leaving  the  kingdom  with  all  the  resources  they  could 
collect ;  and  from  the  frontier,  where  they  were  plotting  foreign  and  civil 
war,  they  were  continually  entering  the  kingdom  to  make  preparations  for 
the  inviLsion. 

Mirabcau,  who  was  at  this  time  conspiring  for  the  escape  of  the  king, 
with  his  accustomed  vehemence  and  his  overpowering  audacity,  opposed 
any  law  against  emigration.* 

"I  admit,"  said  he,  "tliat  a  bad  use  is  made  of  this  liberty  at  the  present 

*  *'Thc  TticetinR  ciulod  nt  lialf  jjiist  five,  nnd  Mirahcnn  wont  to  tlic  house  of  his  sister,  his 
intimate  and  dear  conlithinto,  and  said  to  licr,  '  I  have  jironounccd  my  death-warrant.  It  is  now 
ull  over  with  me,  for  they  will  kill  mc.'  " — Michelct,  p.  4G1. 


1790.]  FLIGHT  OF  THE  KING.  193 

moment.  But  that  by  no  means  authorizes  this  absurd  tyranny.  I  beg 
you  to  remember  that  I  have  all  my  life  combated  against  tyranny,  and 
that  I  will  combat  it  wherever  I  find  it.  That  popularity  to  which  I  have 
aspired,  and  which  I  have  enjoyed,  is  not  a  feeble  reed.  I  will  thrust  it 
deep  into  the  earth,  and  will  make  it  shoot  up  in  the  soil  of  justice  and  of 
reason.  And  I  now  solemnly  swear,  if  a  law  against  emigration  is  voted,  I 
swear  to  disobey  you."* 

The  Assembly  was  truly  in  a  dilemma.  They  could  not  prohibit  emi- 
gration without  grossly  violating  that  declaration  of  rights-  which  they  had 
just  adopted  with  solemnities  which  had  arrested  the  attention  of  the  world. 
They  could  not  permit  this  flood  of  emigration  without  exposing  France  to 
ruin ;  for  it  was  well  known  that  the  nobles,  with  all  the  wealth  they  could 
accumulate,  were  crossing  the  frontiers  merely  to  organize  themselves  into 
armies  for  the  invasion  of  France. 

Mirabeau  never  displayed  more  power  than  on  this  occasion,  in  over- 
awing and  commanding  the  Assembly.  He  succeeded  in  arresting  the  meas- 
ure. This,  however,  was  his  last  triumph.  Disease  was  making  rapid  rav- 
ages, his  frame  was  exhausted,  and  death  approached.  A  sudden  attack 
of  colic  confined  him  to  his  chamber,  and  soon  all  hope  of  recovery  was 
relinquished.  He  was  still  the  idol  of  the  people,  and  crowds,  in  breath- 
less silence,  thronged  around  his  abode,  anxious  to  receive  bulletins  of  his 
health.  The  king  and  the  people  alike  mom-ned,  for  both  were  leaning 
upon  that  vigorous  arm. 

He  could  not  repress  an  expression  of  satisfaction  in,  view  of  his  labors 
and  his  accomplishments.  To  his  servants  he  said,  "  Support  this  head,  the 
greatest  in  France."  "William  Pitt,"  he  remarked^  "is  the  minister  of 
preparations.  He  governs  with  threats.  I  would  give  him  some  trouble 
if  I  should  live."f     On  the  morning  of  his  death  he  said  to  an  attendant, 

"  Open  the  window.  I  shall  die  to-day.  All  that  can  now  be  done  is  to 
envelop  one's  self  in  perfumes,  to  crown  one's  self  with  flowers,  to  surround 
one's  self  with  music,  that  one  may  sink  quietly  into  everlasting  sleep." 

Soon,  in  a  paroxysm  of  extreme  agony,  he  called  for  opium,  saying,  "You 
promised  to  save  me  from  needless  suffering." 

To  quiet  him  a  cup  was  presented,  and  he  was  deceived  with  the  assur- 

*  The  peculiar  character  of  Mirabeau  is  illustrated  by  the  following  well-authenticated  anec- 
dote. He  was,  on  one  occasion,  reading  a  report  to  the  Assembly  upon  some  riots  in  Marseilles, 
which  he  affirmed  were  fomented  by  the  partisans  of  the  court.  He  was  incessantly  interrupted 
by  the  aristocratic  party  with  such  abusive  epithets  as  "calumniator,  liar,  assassin,  scoundrel." 
He  stopped  a  moment,  looked  at  them  with  an  imperturbable  smile,  and,  in  his  most  honeyed 
tones,  said,  "Gentlemen,  I  wait  till  these  amenities  be  exhausted." — Dumont,  Souvenirs,  p.  278. 
t  The  English /ieo/)/e  were  at  this  time  generally  in  sjTnpathy  with  the  Revolution.  The  aris- 
tocratic government  of  England  was  in  deadly  hostility  to  it.  In  1702,  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge, 
then  head  scholar  in  Jesus  College,  Cambridge,  wrote  an  Ode  to  France,  commencing  with  the 
words, 

"  When  France,  in  wrath,  her  giant  limbs  upreared. 
And,  with  that  oath  which  smote  air,  earth,  and  sea, 
Stamped  her  strong  foot,  and  said  she  would  be  free. 
Bear  witness  for  me  how  I  hoped  and  feared." 
In  consequence  of  this  ode,  and  his  avowed  attachment  to  the  principles  of  the  Revolution,  he 
became  so  obnoxious  to  his  superiors  that  he  was  constrained  to  leave  the  college  abruptly,  with- 
out a  degree. — Cydopcedia  of  English  Literature,  Article  S.  T.  Coleridge. 

N 


194  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [CrxF.  XX. 

ance  that  it  contained  the  desired  fatal  opiate.  He  swallowed  the  draught, 
and  in  a  moment  expired,  in  the  forty-second  year  of  his  age.  It  was  the 
2d  of  April,  1791.  His  death  caused  profound  grief.  All  parties  vied  alike 
in  conferring  honor  upon  his  remains.  The  nation  went  into  mourning,  a 
magnificent  funeral  was  arranged,  and  the  body  was  deposited  in  the  tomb 
with  pomp  surpassing  that  which  had  accompanied  the  burial  of  the  ancient 
kino-s  of  France.  Suspicions  kre  still  cherished  that  Mirabeau  died  the  vic- 
tim of  poison.* 

The  funeral  of  Mirabeau  was  the  most  imposing,  popular,  and  extensive 
of  any  recorded  in  history,  always  excepting  that  unparalleled  display  of  a 
nation's  gratitude  and  grief  which  accompanied  the  transfer  of  the  remains 
of  Napoleon  from  St.  Helena  to  the  Invalidcs.  It  is  estimated  that  four 
hundred  thousand  men  took  a  part  in  the  funeral  pageant  of  Mirabeau.  The 
streets  were  draped  in  mourning,  and  pavements,  windows,  balconies,  and 
house-tops  were  thronged  with  sad  and  silent  spectators. 

La  Fayette  headed  the  immense  procession,  and  was  followed  by  the  whole 
Constituent  Assembly,  and  by  the  whole  club  of  Jacobins,  who,  in  a  dense 
mass,  assumed  to  be  chief  mourners  on  the  occasion,  though  Mirabeau  had 
for  some  time  held  himself  aloof  from  their  tumultuous  meetings.  It  was 
eight  o'clock  in  the  evening  before  the  procession  arrived  at  the  Church  of 
Saint  Eustache,  where  a  funeral  oration  was  pronounced  by  Curutti.  The 
arms  of  twenty  thousand  of  the  National  Guard  were  then  discharged  at 
once.  The  crash  caused  the  very  walls  of  the  church  to  rock,  shivering  to 
atoms  every  pane  of  glass. 

It  was  now  night,  and,  by  the  light  of  a  hundred  thousand  torches,  the 
procession  resumed  its  course.  New  instruments  of  music  had  been  invent- 
ed, which  were  then  heard  for  the  first  time — the  trombone  and  the  tamtam. 
As  the  vast  procession  traversed  the  streets  through  the  gloomy  shades  of 
night,  illumined  by  the  glare  of  flickering  torches,  with  the  tolling  of  bells, 
blending,  now  with  the  wail  of  the  chant  and  now  with  the  pealing  requi- 
ems of  martial  bands,  all  the  elements  of  sublimity  seemed  combined  to  af- 
fect the  heart  and  overawe  the  soul.  It  was  near  midnight  when  the  sar- 
cophagus was  deposited  in  its  tomb  at  the  Church  of  Saint  Gcncvicive,  over 
whose  portal  was  inscribed  these  words, 

"AUX    grands    nOMMES    I.A    PATRIE    UECONNAISSASTE." 

Mirabeau  was  the  master-spirit  of  the  Revolution.  After  his  death  there 
were  multitudes  struggling  for  the  leadership,  with  no  man  of  suflicient 
prominence  to  attain  and  retain  it.  The  funeral  of  ^lirabeau  was  the  fu- 
neral of  emancipated  France.  From  that  hour  the  Revolution  was  on  the 
rush  to  ruin. 

"  Time,"  writes  Micholct,  "  which  reveals  every  thing,  has  revealed  noth- 
ing that  really  proves  the  reproach  of  treason  to  be  well  founded.     Mira- 

*  M.  Tliicrs,  in  the  impetuosity  of  his  nnrrfttivc,  is  not  nlwnys  nccurntc  in  ilctnils.  lie  pivos 
the  20th  of  April  ns  tlie  date  of  Mirabemi's  death.  Mipnet  nssi(jns  it  to  the  2d  of  Mareh.  Nearly 
iiil  otlier  atitlioritios  aRree  upon  the  2d  of  April.  It  is  indeed  wonderful  that  ui)on  sueh  a  suh- 
jfct  there  should  he  such  a  diversity  of  statement.  The  event  at  the  time  was  deemed  so  mo- 
nK-ntous,  that  the  .Ia((.l)in  Club  voted  that  the  anniversary  of  liis  death  should,  through  all 
future  time,  be  celebrated  with  funereal  jiouip. 


1791.] 


FLIGHT  OF  THE  KING. 


195 


PUNEEAL   OF   MIEABEAtr. 


beau's  real  transaction  was  an  error,  a  serious,  fatal  error,  but  one  that  was 
tlien  shared  by  all  in  diflferent  degrees.  At  that  time  all  men,  of  every  party, 
from  Cazales  and  Maury  down  to  Eobespierre,  and  even  to  Marat,  believed 
France  to  entertain  Eoyalist  opinions.  All  men  wanted  a  king.  The  num- 
ber of  Republicans  was  truly  imperceptible.  Mirabeau  believed  that  it  was 
necessary  to  have  a  king  with  power,  or  no  king  at  all.  It  is  true  that  Mi- 
rabeau appears  to  have  received  sums  to  defray  the  expense  of  his  immense 
correspondence  with  the  Departments — a  sort  of  ministry  that  he  was  organ- 
izing at  his  own  house.  He  makes  use  of  this  subtle  expression — this  ex- 
cuse which  does  not  excuse  him — that  he  had  not  been  bought ;  that  he  teas 
paid,  not  solely* 

The  death  of  Mirabeau  seemed  to  paralyze  the  hopes  of  the  king,  and  he 
now  resolved  to  spare  no  endeavors  to  secure  his  escape.  On  the  18th  of 
April  the  king  took  his  carriage  at  Versailles,  intending  to  ride  to  St.  Cloud. 
A  rumor  spread  through  the  city  that  he  was  contemplating  flight.  The 
populace  collected  and  stopped  the  horses.  La  Fayette  immediately  hastened 
to  the  spot  with  a  company  of  the  guards,  dispersed  the  mob,  who  offered  no 

*  Mirabeau  claims,  and  his  friends  claim  for  him,  and  probably  with  justice,  that  he  wished  to 
be  the  mediator  between  the  Revolution  and  the  monarchy — to  save  royalty  and  liberty,  believ- 
ing that,  under  the  circumstances,  royalty  was  essential  to  liberty.  But  the  folly  of  the  court 
thwarted  every  endeavor.  They  would  not  accede  to  any  measure  of  justice  and  moderation. 
The  court  wished  only  to  make  him  unpopular.  Mirabeau  saw  his  position,  from  which  no  strug- 
gles could  extricate  him,  and  he  died  of  disappointment  and  grief.  Had  he  not  then  died,  he 
would,  in  a  few  months,  have  inevitably  perished  upon  the  scaffold.  See  Memoires  de  Mirabeau, 
vol.  viii. 


196  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XX. 

Other  violence  than  to  obstruct  the  departure  of  the  king,  and  cleared  a  pas- 
sage. The  king,  however,  who  now  wished  to  have  it  appear  that  he  was 
held  a  prisoner,  as  most  certainly  he  virtually  \vas,  refused  to  go,  and  re- 
turned indignantly  into  the  palace. 

By  the  advice  of  his  ministers  he  repaired  to  the  Assembly,  and  complain- 
ed warmly  of  the  insult  he  had  encountered.  The  king  was  received  with 
the  utmost  kindness  by  the  Assembly,  cordially  greeted,  and  was  assured 
that  every  thing  should  be  done  to  prevent  the  possible  occurrence  of  an- 
other similar  outrage. 

To  disarm  suspicion  and  appease  the  public  mind  the  king,  on  the  23d  of 
April,  sent  a  letter  to  the  foreign  embassadors  declaring  that  he  had  no  in- 
tention of  leaving  France,  that  he  was  resolved  to  be  faithful  to  the  oath 
which  he  had  taken  to  the  Constitution,  and  that  all  those  who  intimated 
any  thing  to  the  contrary  were  his  enemies  and  the  enemies  of  the  country. 
He  soon  after,  however,  declared  to  an  envoy  sent  to  him  from  the  Emperor 
Leoj)old,  that  this  letter  by  no  means  contained  his  real  sentiments,  but  that 
it  was  wrung  from  him  by  the  peril  of  his  situation.* 

A  conference  of  the  foreign  powers  was  held  on  the  20th  of  May,  1791,  at 
Mantua,  in  Italy,  where  Leopold,  Emperor  of  Austria,  and  brother  of  Marie 
Antoinette,  then  chanced  to  be.  At  this  conference  Count  d'Artois  appear- 
ed in  behalf  of  the  emigrants.  Prussia  was  represented  by  Major  Bischof- 
verder,  England  by  Lord  Elgin,  and  Louis  XYI.  by  the  Count  de  Durfort. 
Several  other  of  the  kingdoms  and  principalities  of  Europe  were  represented 
on  the  occasion.  The  Count  de  Durfort  returned  from  this  conference  to 
Louis  XVI.  in  Paris,  and  brought  him  the  following  secret  declaration  in  the 
name  of  the  Emperor  Leopold  :f 

Austria  engaged  to  assemble  thirty-five  thousand  men  on  the  frontiers  of 
Flanders.  At  the  same  time  fifteen  thousand  men  from  the  smaller  German 
States  would  attack  Alsace.  Fifteen  thousand  Swiss  troops  were  to  be 
marched  on  Lyons,  and  the  King  of  Sardinia,  whose  daughter  the  Count  d' 
Artois  had  married,  was  to  assail  Dauphine.  The  king  of  Spain,  cousin  of 
Louis  XVI.,  was  to  gather  twenty  thousand  troops  upon  the  slopes  of  the 
Pyrenees,  to  fall  like  an  avalanche  down  upon  southern  France.  Prussia 
engaged  to  co-operate  cordially.  The  King  of  England,  notwithstanding  the 
eloquence  of  Burke's  pamphlet,  could  not  yet  venture  to  call  upon  the  liberty- 
loving  English  to  engage  in  this  infamous  crusade  against  the  independence 
and  the  liberty  of  a  sister  kingdom.  But  the  king,  as  Elector  of  Ilanover, 
engaged  to  take  an  active  part  in  the  war.  A  protest  against  the  Revolution 
was  to  be  drawn  np  in  the  name  of  the  whole  house  of  Boui-bon,  whose  di- 
vine  rirjht  to  despotism  in  France  had  been  questioned  by  the  French  people, 
and  this  protest  was  to  be  signed  by  those  branches  of  the  Bourbons  who 
were  occupying  the  thrones  of  Spain,  Naples,  and  Parma.J 

*  ncrtrftnd  do  Molevillo.  t  MiRiict,  p.  101.     Villiinmio,  p.  91. 

J  Fox  mid  oihci-8  of  tlic  most  illttstrioiis  of  the  Enjilish  ronnnoners  had  in  the  pnrliiunont  ex- 
pressed their  symimthy  fur  tlio  French  patriots.  A  very  strenuous  eftort  was  made  to  luiito  the 
WIiIk  Jiarty  in  opposition  to  iilx-rty  in  France.  A  meetinR  was  hekl  at  Burlington  House.  Mr. 
Burki!  was  tiie  orj;an  of  the  aristocracy.  The  animated  discussion  was  continued  from  ten  oVh)ek 
at  night  until  tlircc  in  tiic  niorninj,'.     But  the  ditVerences  of  opinion  were  found  irreconeihihle, 


1791.]  FLIGHT  OF  THE  KING.  197 

Plans  for  tlie  invasion  having  been  thus  arranged,  Louis  XYI.  resolved 
immediately  to  effect  his  escape  to  the  frontier.  He  could  then  place  him- 
self at  the  head  of  these  foreign  armies,  and  lash  France  into  obedience,  and 
consign  those  patriots  who  had  been  toiling  for  liberty  to  the  dungeon  and 
the  scaffold. 

Never  was  the  condition  of  a  nation  more  full  of  peril,  or  apparently  more 
hopeless.  This  impending  destruction  was  enough  to  drive  any  people  into 
the  madness  of  despair.  It  is  hard  to  wear  the  fetters  of  bondage  even  when 
one  has  never  known  any  thing  better.  But,  after  having  once  broken  those 
chains  and  tasted  the  sweets  of  liberty,  then  to  have  the  shackles  riveted 
anew  is  what  few  human  spirits  can  endure. 

It  was  not  the  intention  of  the  king  immediately  to  leave  France.  He 
arranged  to  go  to  Montmedy,  about  two  hundred  miles  from  Paris,  taking 
the  very  retired  Chalons  road  through  Clermont  and  Varennes.  The  Mar- 
quis of  Bouille,  a  general  entirely  devoted  to  the  court  party,  formed  a  camp 
at  Montmedy  to  receive  the  king,  under  the  pretense  of  watching  hostile 
movements  on  the  frontiers.  Small  detachments  of  cavalry  were  also  very 
quietly  posted  at  different  points  on  the  road  to  aid  in  the  flight.  All  the 
arrangements  were  made  for  starting  on  the  20th  of  June.* 

The  king,  though  on  the  whole  a  worthy  man,  and  possessing  some  ex- 
cellent traits  of  character,  was  in  some  points  weak  almost  to  imbecility. 
All  the  energy  of  the  family  was  with  the  queen,  and  she,  with  the  Marquis 
of  Bouille,  planned  the  escape.  They  were  often  thwarted,  however,  in 
their  wishes  by  the  obstinacy  of  the  king.  La  Fayette  was  entirely  de- 
ceived, and  but  few  even  of  the  court  were  intrusted  with  the  secret.  Still, 
rumors  of  flight  had  been  repeatedly  circulated,  and  the  people  were  in  a 
state  of  constant  anxiety  lest  the  court  should  carry  off  the  king.  They 
hardly  believed  that  the  king  himself  wished  to  join  the  emigrants,  and  to 
urge  war  against  the  Constitution  which  he  had  sworn  to  accept. 

The  Swiss  Guards  still  surrounded  the  Tuileries.  They  were  stationed, 
however,  only  at  the  exterior  posts.  The  interior  of  the  palace,  the  stair- 
cases, and  the  communications  between  the  rooms  were  occupied  by  the  Na- 
tional Guard,  in  whom  the  nation  could  place  more  reliance.  It  was  a  long- 
established  custom  that  troops  should  be  thus  stationed  throughout  the  pal- 
ace, that  the  royal  family  might  be  protected  from  impertinence  or  from 
any  irruption  of  popular  violence.  Since  the  terrible  scenes  of  the  5th  and 
6th  of  October  it  became  more  important  than  ever  that  a  strong  guard 
should  encircle  the  royal  family.  But  while  the  ostensible  duty  of  this 
guard  was  only  to  protect  the  king  from  insult,  it  had  also  a  secret  mission 
to  prevent  the  king's  escape. 

and  only  resulted  in  the  permanent  alienation  of  Fox  and  Burke. — See  Lectures  on  the  French 
Revolution,  hy  Prof.  Wm.  Smyth,  vol.  i.,  p.  84. 

*  "The  princes,"  writes  M.Fromont,  "conceived  the  plan  of  forming  legions  of  all  the  loyal 
subjects  of  the  king.  Desiring  to  be  at  the  head  of  those  Royalists  whom  I  had  commanded  in 
1 789,  I  wrote  to  Count  d'Artois,  begging  his  royal  highness  to  grant  me  the  commission  of  col- 
onel, worded  so  that  every  Royalist  who  would  raise  a  legion  might  hope  for  a  like  favor.  The 
members  of  his  council  thought  it  so  strange  that  a  commoner  should  aspire  to  a  military  commis- 
sion, that  one  of  them  said  to  me  angrily,  'Why  did  you  not  ask  for  a  bishopric?'  " — Recueil  de 
divers  Ecrits  relatifs  a  la  Revolution,  p.  62. 


198  TUE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XX. 

La  Fayette,  to  -whom  the  whole  business  was  intrusted,  oppressed  with 
the  responsibility  of  his  office,  was  continually,  by  night  and  by  day,  visit- 
incr  the  posts.  To  the  officers  who  had  charge  of  the  night-watch  he  had 
given  secret  orders  that  the  king  was  not  to  be  permitted  to  leave  the  palace 
after  miduifht.  Thus  the  king  was  truly  a  prisoner,  and  he  was  fully  con- 
scious of  it,  though  every  possible  efibrt  was  adopted  to  conceal  from  him 
the  humiliating  fact. 

M.  Bouillc  and  the  queen  were  compelled  to  yield  to  the  whims  of  the 
king,  and  to  adopt  measures  which  threatened  to  frustrate  the  plan.  The 
king  insisted  upon  having  an  immense  carriage  constructed  which  could 
take  the  whole  party,  though  the  unusual  appearance  of  the  carriage  would 
instantly  attract  all  eyes ;  he  insisted  upon  traveling  a  very  unfrequented 
route,  which  would  excite  the  curiosity  of  every  one  who  should  see  the 
carriage  pass;  he  insisted  upon  stationing  military  detachments  along  the 
route,  though  Bouille  urged  that  such  detachments  if  small  could  render  no 
service,  and  if  large  would  excite  suspicion ;  he  insisted  upon  taking  the 
governess  of  the  children,  because  the  governess  said  that  she  loved  the 
children  too  much  to  be  separated  from  them,  though  Bouille  urged  that  in- 
stead of  the  incumbrance  of  a  governess  they  should  take  in  the  carriage 
an  officer  accustomed  to  traveling,  and  who  could  aid  in  any  unexpected 
emergency.  The  king,  though  fickle  as  the  wind  upon  questions  of  great 
moment,  was,  like  all  weak  men,  inflexible  upon  trifles."^ 

At  midnight  of  the  20th  of  June,  the  king,  the  queen,  Madame  Elizabeth, 
the  sister  of  the  king,  the  two  ro^^al  children,  and  Madame  Tourzel  their 
governess,  carefully  disguised  themselves  in  one  of  the  interior  rooms  of  the 
Tuileries.  Creeping  cautiously  down,  in  three  successive  parties,  an  obscure 
flight  of  stairs,  and  emerging  by  a  gate  which  was  contrived  to  be  left  im- 
guarded,  the  fugitives,  mingling  with  the  groups  of  people  who  ever  at  that 
time  were  leaving  the  chateau,  crossed  the  Carrousel,  and,  taking  different 
streets,  groped  along  through  the  darkness  until  they  all  met  on  the  Quai 
des  Thcatins,  where  two  hacknej-coachcs  awaited  them.  In  breathless  si- 
lence they  took  their  seats.  The  Count  de  Fersen,  a  Prussian  noble,  young, 
liandsomc,  enthusiastic,  who  was  inspired  with  a  chivalric  admiration  of 
Marie  Antoinette,  had  made  all  the  arrangements  for  the  escape  from  the 
city.  Disguised  as  a  coachman,  he  conducted  the  king,  who  led  the  young 
dauphin  by  the  hand.  The  count  immediately  mounted  the  box  of  the 
coach  which  contained  the  royal  family,  and  drove  rapidly  some  twelve 

*  "What  Rrieves  us,  moreover,  amonp  other  thinps,  in  this  journey  to  Varennes,  and  lessens 
the  idea  wc  would  like  to  entertain  of  the  kind's  goodness  of  heart,  is  the  iudifterenic  with  which 
he  sacrificed,  by  his  departure,  and  abandoned  to  death  men  who  were  sincerely  attached  to 
liim.  By  thci  force  of  circumstances  La  Fayette  found  himself  to  he  the  involuntary  guardian  of 
the  king,  and  resjKjnsihle  to  the  nation  for  his  jierson.  He  had  shown  in  various  ways,  and  some- 
times even  in  compromising  the  Revolntion,  that  he  desired,  beyond  ever)'  thing  else,  the  n\storn- 
tion  of  the  kingly  jK)wer,  as  the  guarantee  of  ()rd<'r  and  tran<iuillity.  There  was  every  n>ason  to 
suppose  that,  at  the  startling  news  of  the  king's  departure,  La  Fayette  would  be  torn  to  pieces. 

"  La  Fayette,  receiving  warnings  from  several  quarters,  would  believe  nobody  but  the  king  him- 
self. He  went  to  him  and  asked  him  whether  there  was  any  truth  in  the  reports.  Louis  XVI. 
gave  such  a  decided,  simple  answer,  and  in  such  a  good-imtured  manner,  that  La  Fayette  went 
away  completely  satisfied,  and  it  was  merely  to  calm  the  auxiety  of  the  public  that  lie  doubled 
hLs  guard." — Mic/wlcl,  p.  573. 


1791.]  FLIGHT  OF  THE  KING.  199 

miles  to  the  little  town  of  Boncly,  where  the  capacious  carriage  constructed 
for  the  king  was  waiting  before  the  door  of  an  Englishman,  Mr.  Crawford. 
At  the  same  hour  in  a  similar  manner  the  king's  brother,  Monsieur  the 
Count  of  Provence,  subsequently  Louis  XVIII.,  left  the  Palace  of  the  Lux- 
embourg, and  with  his  family  traveled  aU  night  toward  Flanders,  where  he 
crossed  the  frontiers  in  safety. 

At  Bondy  the  king,  the  queen,  Madame  Elizabeth,  the  two  children,  Maria 
Theresa  being  about  ten  years  of  age  and  Louis  seven,  with  their  governess, 
took  their  seats  in  the  large  carriage.  One  of  the  body-guard  of  the  king, 
disguised  as  a  servant,  sat  on  the  box,  and  another,  as  footman,  sat  behind. 
M.  de  Vallory  rode  on  horseback,  that  he  might  gallop  forward  and  order 
the  relays  of  horses.  The  waiting  women  of  the  queen,  who,  by  the  strang- 
est infatuation,  had  been  included  in  the  party,  took  the  other  carriage. 

The  Marquis  of  Bouille,  an  energetic,  heroic  man,  finding  that  he  could 
not  control  the  arrangements  of  the  king,  did  every  thing  in  his  power  to 
avert  the  suspicion  which  the  strange-looking  cortege  would  be  likely  to  ex- 
cite. He  had  a  passport  prepared,  in  which  the  governess  was  represented 
as  a  German  baroness,  Madame  de  Korflf,  traveling  with  her  two  children. 
The  king  was  her  valet-de-chambre,  the  queen  her  waiting-maid.  The  pro- 
verbial wealth  of  the  German  barons  and  the  peculiar  style  of  the  equipage 
to  which  they  were  accustomed  happily  favored  this  idea.* 

The  morning  was  just  beginning  to  dawn  as  Count  Fersen  kissed  the 
hands  of  the  king  and  queen  and  left  them  to  prosecute  their  perilous  jour- 
ney, while  he  took  flight  for  the  frontier  through  Flanders.  The  coach  was 
drawn  by  six  horses,  who  were  driven  at  the  utmost  speed,  relays  of  horses 
having  been  established  at  short  stages.  The  sun  at  length  rose  bright  and 
cheerful.  The  country  was  smiling  in  all  the  verdure  of  blooming  June. 
Every  revolution  of  the  wheels  was  bearing  them  farther  from  Paris.  It 
was  hardly  possible  that  their  flight  could  be  discovered  until  a  late  hour  in 
the  mornmg.  There  were  no  telegTaphs  in  those  days  to  send  intelligence 
with  lightning  speed  to  arrest  their  flight.  Having  six  or  eight  hours  the 
start  of  their  pursuers,  and  being  abundantly  supplied  with  fresh  horses, 
escape  seemed  now  almost  certain.     Hope  began  to  cheer  their  hearts. 

Some  slight  interruptions  had  retarded  their  progress,  and  it  was  about 
three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  when  they  entered  Chalons,  some  ninety  miles 
from  Paris.  The  queen,  with  an  exultant  smile,  exclaimed,  "  All  goes  well. 
If  we  were  to  have  been  stopped  at  all  it  would  have  been  before  now." 

At  Chalons  they  exchanged  horses.  The  king  now  felt  that  he  was  safe, 
for  the  Marquis  of  Bouille  had  posted  detachments  of  troops  at  every  impor- 
tant point  between  Chalons  and  Montmedy.  With  characteristic  imprudence, 
as  the  carriage  was  surrounded  with  idlers  at  Chalons,  the  king  put  his  head 
out  of  the  window,  showing  his  well-known  face  to  the  crowd.  The  post- 
master instantly  recognized  the  king,  but,  being  himself  an  ardent  Roj^alist, 
divulged  not  his  secret,  but  aided  in  putting  in  the  fresh  horses,  and  ordered 
the  postillions  to  drive  on. 

*  The  passport  was  made  oiat  as  follows  :  "  De  par  le  roi.  Mandons  de  laisser  passer  Madame 
le  Baron  de  KoriF,  se  rendant  a  Franckfort  avec  ses  deux  enfants,  une  femme  de  chambre,  un  valet 
de  chambre,  et  trois  domestiques." 


200  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXI. 

About  ten  miles  from  Chalons  is  the  bridge  of  Sommeville,  which  crosses 
a  narrow  stream,  where  the  Dake  of  Choiseul  and  M.  Goguelat  were  station- 
ed with  fifty  hussars.  They  were  to  secure  the  king's  passage,  and  then  to 
remain  and  block  up  the  road  against  all  pursuers.  Faithful  to  the  plan, 
they  were  at  the  bridge,  with  the  mounted  hussars,  at  the  appointed  hour. 
The  strange  assemblage  of  a  military  force  at  that  spot  excited  the  curiosity 
of  the  peasants,  and  a  great  crowd  was  gathered.  Every  mind  throughout 
France  was  then  in  a  very  sensitive  state.  The  crowd  increased,  and  in  the 
adjoining  villages  the  alarm-bells  were  beginning  to  ring.  As  the  royal  car- 
riages did  not  appear  for  five  or  six  hours  later  than  they  were  expected,  the 
Duke  of  Choiseul,  to  appease  the  ferment,  left  the  spot,  and  the  people  then 
dispersed. 

Soon  after  the  detachment  had  left  the  king  arrived,  and  was  surprised  to 
find  no  troops.  It  was  then  between  four  and  five  o'clock  in  the  evening. 
In  great  perplexity  and  anxiety  he  drove  rapidly  on  two  hours  farther  to  St. 
Menehould,  where  he  was  to  find  another  detachment  of  troops ;  but  the 
Duke  of  Choiseul  had  sent  forward  to  St.  Menehould  and  Chalons,  inform- 
ing the  detachments  there  that  he  had  waited  six  hours  for  the  arrival  of  the 
.  king ;  that  the  plan  had  probably  miscarried ;  that  excitement  was  rapidly 
rising  among  the  people ;  and  that  the  detachments  had  better  retire. 

The  king,  unaware  of  all  this,  was  astonished  and  bewildered  in  still  find- 
ing no  troops,  and  naturally,  but  imprudently,  again  looked  out  of  the  win- 
dow. The  excited  crowd  which  was  gathered  around  the  carriages  suspect- 
ed that  they  contained  the  ro3^al  family.  A  young  man  named  Drouet,  son 
of  the  postmaster,  instantly  recognized  the  king,  from  his  resemblance  to  the 
imprint  on  the  coins  in  circulation.  Without  communicating  his  discovery 
to  any  one,  he  mounted  a  horse,  and,  taking  a  cross  road,  galloped  some 
twelve  or  fifteen  miles  to  Varennes,  to  inform  the  municipality  and  cause  the 
arrest  of  the  party. 


CHAPTER  XXL 

ARREST  OF  THE  ROYAL  FUGITIVES. 


Anivnl  nt  Varennes.— The  Party  arrested.— Personal  Appearance  of  the  King.— The  Guards 
fraternize  with  the  People. — Indignation  of  the  Crowd. — The  Captives  compelled  to  return  to 
Paris.— Dismay  of  M.  de  Bouille'. — E.xcitement  in  Paris. — The  Mob  ransack  the  Tuileries. — 
Acts  of  tlie  Assembly.— Decisive  Action  of  LaFayette. — Proclamation  of  the  King. — The  Jac- 
obin Club. — Unanimity  of  France. 

The  carriages  were  driven  rapidly  forward,  while  the  royal  family  sat  ]->er- 
plexcd  and  silent,  yet  quite  unprepared  for  the  doom  which  was  inipcnding. 
An  hour's  drive  brought  them  to  Clermont.  Here  the  king  found  two 
squadrons  of  horse,  under  Count  do  Pumas.  But  the  detachments  of  dra- 
goons moving  to  and  fro  had  excited  suspicion,  and  the  jwpulacc  of  Clermont 
liad  been  roused,  and  gathered  alarmingly  around  the  carriages. 

Tiie  municipal  authorities  examined  the  passports  of  the  travelers,  and, 
finding  all  apparently  correct,  allowed  them  to  jiroceed,  but,  calling  out  a  de- 
tachment of  the  National  Guard,  forbade  the  Dragoons  to  leave  the  town. 


1791.]  AEREST  OF  THE  ROYAL  FUGITIVES.  201 

The  Dragoons,  wTiose  sympathies  were  with  the  people,  and  who  knew  not 
on  what  mission  they  had  been  led  by  their  officers,  immediately  fraternized 
with  the  Guards,  and  their  commander,  Count  Dumas,  was  indebted  to  the 
fleetness  of  his  horse  for  his  escape  from  arrest.  It  was  midnight  when  the 
carriages  arrived  at  Varennes.  This  little  town  is  situated  on  both  banks  of 
a  narrow  stream  united  by  a  bridge.  A  tower  is  at  one  end  of  the  bridge, 
supported  by  a  massive  and  gloomy  arch,  which  arch  must  be  traversed  with 
care  to  enter  upon  the  bridge,  and  where  a  very  slight  obstacle  would  pre- 
vent any  advance ;  "  a  relic,"  says  Lamartine,  "  of  the  feudal  system,  in 
which  the  nobles  captured  the  serfs,  and  where,  by  a  strange  retribution,  the 
people  were  destined  to  capture  the  monarchy." 

The  royal  family,  entirely  exhausted  with  sleeplessness,  anxiety,  and  the 
travel  of  twenty-four  hours,  were  all  asleep,  when  the  few  scattering  lights 
of  the  town  were  perceived.  They  were  to  change  horses  here,  and  the  king 
was  distinctly  informed  that  they  would  find  the  horses  hefore  crossing  the  riv- 
er. It  was,  however,  afterward  decided,  without  communicating  the  change 
to  the  king,  that  the  fresh  horses  should  be  stationed  on  the  other  side  of  the 
bridge.  Thus  the  carriages  could  cross  the  bridge  at  full  speed,  and,  in  case 
of  any  popular  tumult,  could  more  easily  effect  a  change  of  horses  and  de- 
parture on  the  other  side. 

The  king  and  queen,  greatly  alarmed  in  finding  no  relay  of  horses,  them- 
selves left  the  carriage,  and  groped  about  through  the  darkened  streets  seek- 
ing for  them  in  vain.  A  few  lights  burned  dimly  here  and  there  in  the 
houses,  but  all  else  was  the  silence  and  gloom  of  midnight.  The  king  even 
knocked  at  a  few  doors  where  lights  were  seen,  and  inquired  for  the  relays. 
The  half-roused  sleepers  could  give  him  no  intelligence. 

In  thus  traveling  by  relays  of  horses  in  Europe,  each  relay  has  its  postil- 
lions, who  go  their  appointed  stage  only.  The  postillions  who  had  drawn 
the  carriage  from  the  last  post-house,  entirely  unconscious  of  the  dignity  of 
their  passengers,  having  fulfilled  their  appointed  task,  weary  of  waiting, 
threatened  to  unharness  their  horses  and  leave  the  carriage  in  the  street  until 
the  relay  should  arrive.  By  dint  of  bribes  the  king  induced  them  to  cross 
the  bridge  and  continue  the  journey. 

Just  as  they  entered  the  arch  beneath  the  tower  to  cross  the  bridge,  and 
when  enveloped  in  almost  Egyptian  darkness,  the  horses  were  stopped  by  a 
cart  which  obstructed  the  way.  Some  men  seized  the  bridles  of  the  leaders, 
and  one  man  on  horseback  shouted  at  the  window  of  the  carriage  the  appal- 
ling words, 

"  In  the  name  of  the  nation,  stop !     You  are  driving  the  king." 

Drouet  had  effectually  accomplished  his  design.  Taking  a  shorter  road 
than  that  which  the  carriage  pursued,  he  rode  directly  to  a  stable,  commu- 
nicated his  secret  to  the  inn-keeper  and  sent  him  to  give  the  alarm,  while  he, 
with  a  few  comrades  whom  he  hastily  gathered,  barricaded  the  bridge  with 
the  cart  and  such  other  heavy  articles  as  they  could  lay  their  hands  upon. 
The  delay  upon  the  other  side  just  gave  them  time  to  do  this  before  the 
carriage  entered  the  vaulted  archway. 

The  king  and  queen  were  thunderstruck,  and  their  hearts  sank  in  dismay. 
Immediately  they  perceived  the  signs  of  a  great  tumult.     The  village  bells 


202 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


[Chap.  XXI. 


were  ringing.  Lights  were  flashing  through  the  gloom.  An  undefined  up- 
roar seemed  to  increase  in  the  streets,  while  crowds  were  collecting  on  the 
bridge.  One  man  with  a  lantern  in  his  hand  half  entered  the  carriage  and 
cast  the  light  full  upon  the  faces  of  each  one  of  the  inmates.  The  travelers 
were  then  commanded  to  alight  and  exhibit  their  passports.  Drouet,  taking 
the  passports,  conducted  the  captives  in  their  carriage  back  again  from  the 
bridge  to  the  door  of  the  mayor  of  the  little  town,  a  grocer  by  the  name  of 
Sausse. 

Here  there  was  quite  a  debate.  The  passports  were  made  out  correctly. 
The  party  corresponded  with  the  description.  They  all  declared  that  they 
were  the  Baroness  de  Korflf  with  her  attendants.  Sausse  appeared  to  be 
satisfied.  But  Drouet,  a  young  man  of  unusual  intelligence  and  energy,  de- 
manded, 

"  Why  is  not  the  passport  signed  by  the  President  of  the  National  As- 
sembly ?  And  if  you  are  foreigners,  how  is  it  that  you  have  influence  to 
procure  fifty  dragoons  to  escort  you  at  St.  Menehould,  and  as  many  more  at 
Clermont?  And  why  is  there  a  detachment  of  hussars  waiting  for  you  at 
Yarenncs  ?" 


•If 


..N^l 


AUUbSi'KU   AT  VAUikNMBB. 


In  the  eagerness  of  the  altercation  it  became  very  evident  that  the  coun- 
terfeit servants  were  not  menials,  and  that  the  assumed  baroness  was  not 
accustomed  to  exercise  authority  over  her  pretended  maid-servant  and 
valet  de  chambre.  By  this  time  a  suflicient  number  of  the  National  Guard 
had  assembled  to  prevent  the  possi])ility  of  the  rescue  of  the  captives  by  the 
Hussars.     The  queen,  seeing  that  all  farther  attempts  at  deception  were  use- 


-1791.] 


ARREST  OF  THE  ROYAL  FUGITIVES. 


203 


less,  and  indignant  at  the  disrespect  witli  whicli  her  husband  was  treated, 
exclaimed, 

"  Since  you  acknowledge  him  to  be  your  king,  speak  to  him  with  the  re- 
spect which  vou  owe  him!" 


80ENE  AT   \AKENNEb. 


The  whole  party  had  thus  far  remained  in  the  carriage.  The  tumult  was 
rapidly  increasing.  The  bells  were  ringing,  guns  firing,  drums  beating,  and 
a  crowd  of  men  and  women,  in  disordered  dresses  and  eagerly  vociferating, 
was  fast  gathering  around  the  captives.  Lights  in  the  distance  were  seen 
hurrying  to  and  fro,  and  armed  men  in  tumultuous  bands  of  excitement 
and  consternation  were  rushing  from  all  directions.  Eespectfully  Sausse, 
who  appears  to  have  been  a  very  humane  man,  urged  them  to  alight,  and 
for  their  own  protection  to  enter  the  door  of  the  grocery.  They  did  so,  and 
sat  down  upon  the  boxes,  barrels,  and  bags  which  were  scattered  around. 
The  king  now,  to  save  himself  from  farther  insults,  appealed  to  the  loyalty 
of  his  subjects.     He  rose,  and  with  dignity  said  to  the  crowd, 


204  THE  riiEXCii  REVOLu-noN.  [CiiAr.  XXI. 

"  Yes !  I  am  jour  king.  Behold  the  queen  and  my  children.  'We  en- 
treat you  to  treat  us  with  the  respect  which  the  French  have  always  shown 
to  their  sovereigns. 

AVith  the  excejition  of  that  courtliness  of  manners  which  is  almost  the  in- 
heritance of  high  birth,  there  was  nothing  in  the  king's  personal  appearance 
to  inspire  deference.  Though  a  somewhat  educated  and  accomplished  man, 
he  was  totally  destitute  of  any  administrative  skill  or  of  any  initiative  pow- 
ers. Uc  would  have  embellished  almost  any  situation  in  private  life,  as  a 
kind-hearted,  conscientious,  exemplary  man.  The  costume  of  a  servant,  a 
steward,  a  tutor,  a  clerk,  was  far  more  in  accordance  with  his  abilities  and 
his  character  than  the  insignia  of  royalty.  His  figure  was  swollen  by  a 
flabby  obesity,  the  result  of  a  ravenous  appetite  and  indolent  habits.  His 
legs  were  too  short  for  his  body;  the  expression  of  his  countenance  unin- 
tellectual  and  stolid. 

As  he  appeared  before  the  peasants  and  townsmen  of  Varenncs  that  nighty 
exhausted  with  fatigue  and  terror,  in  the  mean  dress  of  a  valet,  in  a  disor- 
dered wig,  his  fat  cheeks  pale  and  shrunken,  with  livid  lips  aghast  and 
speechless,  he  excited  first  emotions  of  surprise,  then  of  contempt,  then  of 
unfeigned  pity.  "What,  that  the  king!  that  the  queen!"  the  crowd  ex- 
claimed in  amazement.  The  piteous  spectacle  brought  tears  into  the  eyes 
even  of  many  of  the  most  hostile  and  obdurate. 

Varennes  was  but  thirty  miles  from  Montmedy,  which,  though  in  France, 
was  directly  on  the  Germanic  frontier.  Thus  the  citizens  of  Varennes  were 
at  but  a  few  hours'  march  from  those  terrible  armies  of  the  Continent  which 
were  threatening  to  sweep  over  France  with  flame  and  blood.  Knowing 
that  their  town  might  be  one  of  the  first  to  encounter  the  horrors  of  war, 
they  had  been  living  in  the  midst  of  the  most  terrific  alarms.  They  had 
hoped  that  the  king  was,  in  heart,  in  sympathy  with  the  nation,  and  would 
place  himself  at  the  head  of  the  nation  to  resist  the  invaders.  Surj^rise, 
grief,  and  indignation  struggled  in  their  hearts  as  they  found  that  the  king 
was  actually  endeavoring  to  escape  from  France  to  join  their  enemies.  None 
but  those  who  live  on  the  frontier  at  such  a  time  can  fully  realize  the  terri- 
ble significance  of  the  words  the  enemy. 

"  What !"  exclaimed  the  multitude,  "  the  king  running  away,  abandoning 
us,  his  children,  and  becoming  a  traitor  to  the  nation ;  going  over  to  the 
enemy,  to  aid  them  to  burn  our  homes  and  massacre  us  all !" 

Some  wept ;  others  execrated ;  others  threatened  to  shoot  the  king  upon 
the  spot.  The  simple-hearted  peasants  were,  in  intelligence,  mere  children. 
They  had  been  educated  to  regard  the  monarchy  as  paternal  and  the  king 
as  their  father.  Choiseul  and  Goguclat,  who,  it  will  be  remembered,  were 
stationed  at  the  bridge  of  Sommevillc  with  fifty  hussars,  now  came  clatter- 
ing into  the  streets  of  Varennes  with  their  detachment.  At  the  same  time 
Count  Dumas  arrived,  who  had  escaped  alone  from  his  dragoons,  they  hav- 
ing aband(jned  \\m\  at  St.  Menehould. 

The  grocer's  shop  was  surrounded  with  a  crowd  armed  with  muskets, 
pitchforks,  and  axes.  Notwithstanding  many  fierce  threats,  the  oflici^rs 
hrecA  their  way  through  the  crowd  and  entered  the  shop.  There  they 
found  the  royid  family  hi  a  dejjlorable  condition.    The  little  boy,  Louis,  the 


1791.]  AEREST  OF  THE  ROYAL  FUGITIVES.  205 

daupliiu,  was  happily  asleep  on  a  low  cot  bed.  His  sister,  Maria  Theresa, 
three  years  older,  in  great  terror,  was  sitting  on  a  bench  between  her  gov- 
erness and  her  aunt  Elizabeth,  clinging  tremblingly  to  their  hands.  The 
king  and  queen  were  standing  by  the  side  of  M.  Sausse,  imploring  him  to 
|)ermit  them  to  continue  on  their  way. 

Choiseul,  grasping  significantly  the  hilt  of  his  sword,  said  boldly  to  the 
king,  "Sire,  please  give  immediate  orders  to  dejDart.  I  have  forty  hus- 
sars. No  time  is  to  be  lost.  In  one  hour  they  will  be  gained  over  by  the 
people." 

This  was  true.  The  hussars  were  Germans.  Blindly  obeying  their  offi- 
cers, they  had  no  idea  of  the  commission  upon  which  they  had  been  sent. 
They  were  now  surrounded  by  the  populace,  and  were  listening,  with  sur- 
prise and  sympathy,  to  their  narrative  of  the  events.  At  this  critical  mo- 
ment the  municipality  of  Varennes,  accompanied  by  the  officers  of  the  Na- 
tional Guard  in  that  place,  entered  the  shop.  Accustomed  as  ihej  had  long 
been  to  revere  and  almost  to  adore  royalty,  for  the  rural  districts  had  by  no 
means  kept  pace  with  Paris  in  disregard  of  the  throne,  the  officers  threw 
themselves  upon  their  knees  before  the  king  and  said, 

"In  God's  name,  sire,  do  not  forsake  us;  do  not  quit  the  kingdom." 

"It  is  not  my  intention,"  the  king  replied,  "to  leave  France.  The  insults 
I  have  suffered  force  me  to  leave  Paris.  I  am  going  only  to  Montmedy, 
and  I  invite  you  to  accompany  me  thither;  only  give  orders,  I  j)ray  you, 
for  my  carriages  to  be  got  ready." 

The  municipal  authorities  departed  to  deliberate,  begging  the  king  tc 
wait  till  the  light  should  dawn.  It  was  now  two  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
The  chances  of  escape  were  every  moment  diminishing.  The  crowd,  armed 
with  such  weapons  as  they  could  on  the  moment  seize,  had  become  formi 
dable ;  the  bridge  was  so  barricaded  that  it  could  not  be  passed ;  and  but  lit 
tie  reliance  could  be  placed  in  the  fidelity  of  the  hussars.  There  was,  how- 
ever, a  ford  near  by,  where  the  stream  could  be  passed  on  horseback 
Choiseul  and  Gognelat  entreated  the  king  and  queen,  with  the  ladies,  im 
mediately  to  mount  on  horseback,  the  king  holding  the  dauphin  on  the 
saddle,  and,  protected  by  the  forty  hussars,  to  cross  the  stream,  and  attempt 
to  effect  their  escape. 

The  queen,  whose  personal  heroism  never  forsook  her,  looked  at  her  chil- 
dren, thought  of  the  bullets  which  might  be  showered  upon  them,  and,  yield- 
ing to  a  mother's  love,  hesitated.  The  king  also,  who  never  dishonored 
himself  by  an  act  of  cowardice,  thought  only  of  the  peril  of  those  who  were 
dearer  to  him  than  life,  and  said, 

"  But  can  you  assure  me  that  in  this  struggle  a  shot  may  not  strike  the 
queen,  my  sister,  or  the  children  ?  Besides,  the  municipality  does  not  forbid 
to  let  us  pass ;  it  merely  requests  me  to  wait  till  daybreak.  Moreover,  the 
Marquis  de  Bouille  is  at  Stenay,  but  twenty -four  miles  distant.  He  can  not 
fail  to  learn  of  my  detention,  and  he  will  be  here  with  his  troops  in  the 
morning." 

Another  weary  hour  of  agitation,  tumult,  and  gathering  excitement  pass- 
ed away,  and  the  clock  struck  three.  The  hussars  were  now  completely 
gained  over  by  the  people,  and  were  drinking  with  them  "  To  the  Nation." 


206  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXI. 

The  municipal  authorities,  having  briefly  deliberated,  returned  to  the  king 
with  this  short  but  terrible  announcement, 

"  The  people,  being  absolutely  opposed  to  the  king  continuing  his  journey, 
have  resolved  to  dispatch  a  courier  to  the  National  Assembly  in  order  to  be 
infonned  of  its  intentions." 

M.  dc  Goguelat  now  went  out  into  the  surging  crowd  to  judge  if  it  were 
possible  to  fight  their  way  through.  Mounting  his  horse  he  rode  slowly 
around,  when  Drouet  approached  him  and  said,  "  You  want  to  carry  off  the 
king,  but  you  shall  not  have  him  alive." 

The  carriage  was  surrounded  by  a  body  of  the  National  Guard.  Gogue- 
lat approached  the  carriage  with  a  few  hussars  who  still  hesitatingly  obeyed 
his  orders,  when  the  major  in  command  of  the  detachment  of  the -National 
Guard  said  to  him,  "  One  step  farther,  and  I  shoot  you." 

Goguelat  spurred  his  horse  on,  when  a  pistol  was  discharged.  Two  bul- 
lets struck  him,  and  he  fell  bleeding  to  the  ground.  He  was,  however,  able 
to  rise  and  enter  the  shop,  but  the  hussars  immediately  with  acclaim  avowed 
themselves  the  soldiers  of  the  nation.  Goguelat  had  observed  also  that  at 
the  end  of  the  street  there  were  two  cannons  planted  which  seemed  ready  to 
fire  upon  them.  There  was  no  longer  the  possibility  of  escape  by  force,  un- 
less M.  de  Bouilld  should  chance  to  arrive  in  season  with  his  well-trained 
dragoons. 

As  Goguelat,  wounded  and  covered  with  blood,  again  entered  the  presence 
of  the  royal  family,  they  presented  a  heart-rending  spectacle.  The  queen 
was  sitting  upon  a  bench  between  two  boxes  of  candles,  piteously  pleading 
with  the  grocer's  wife  to  intercede  with  her  husband  in  their  behalf 

"You  are  a  mother,  madame,"  said  the  queen ;  "you  are  a  wife;  the  fate 
of  a  wife  and  mother  is  in  your  hands.  Think  what  I  must  suffer  for  these 
children,  for  my  husband.  At  one  word  from  you  I  shall  owe  them  to  you. 
The  Queen  of  France  will  owe  you  more  than  her  kingdom,  more  than  life." 

There  is  an  instinct,  unreflecting,  in  the  human  heart,  which  says  that  it 
would  have  been  nolle  in  the  woman  to  have  periled  every  thing  to  save  the 
queen.  The  universal  heart  does  homage  to  disinterested  benevolence,  even 
when  it  is  unthinking  and  mistaken.  But  in  this  case  the  good  woman, 
with  very  natural  and  prosaic  common  sense,  said, 

"  I  wish  it  were  in  my  power  to  help  you.  But  bless  me !  you  are  think- 
ing of  your  husband  and  I  am  thinking  of  mine.  Every  woman  for  her 
own  husband." 

This  speech  certainly  did  not  indicate  a  heroic  nature.  But  it  is  ob\nous 
that  M.  Saussc  had  now  no  power  to  save  the  king.  Matters  had  proceeded 
far  beyond  his  control.  If  he  could  by  any  stratagem  have  facilitated  the 
flight,  his  own  life  would  have  been  the  inevitable" foifoit.  It  would  have 
been  trea.son  to  the  nation.  Humanity  also  seemed  imperiously  to  demand 
that  the  king  .should  be  stopped.  His  escape  would  place  him  at  the  head 
of  foreign  and  liostile  armies  to  ravage  France  with  tlic  horrors  of  war,  and 
to  quench  tlic  kindling  flame  of  liberty  in  blood. 

The  queen,  whose  energetic  mind  foresaw  the  awful  future,  was  over- 
whelmed and  burst  into  tears.  The  king  had  now  lost  all  self-possession, 
and  was  bewihlered  aa  a  child.    Tlie  people,  who  began  to  be  apprehensive 


1791.]  ARREST  OF  THE  ROYAL  FUGITIVES.  207 

that  the  troops  of  Boiiille  might  come  to  the  rescue,  were  crowding  the  door 
and  shouting,  "  Back,  back  to  Paris." 

The  king  was  urged  to  show  himself,  that  he  might  tranquilize  the  peo- 
ple. He  went  to  a  window  and  looked  out  upon  the  excited  multitude, 
over  whom  a  few  torches  shed  a  lurid  light.  The  sight  of  the  king  at  first 
produced  profound  silence.  The  people  then,  as  versatile  as  children,  were 
so  affected  bj  the  appearance  of  the  king  in  his  servile  dress,  and  with  his 
woe-worn  countenance,  that  many  wept ;  and  while  not  one  word  of  insult 
was  heard,  many  cried  out,  in  compassionate  tones,  Vive  le  Roi! 

The  day  was  then  just  beginning  to  dawn.  Gradually  the  sun  rose,  and 
shone  upon  a  strange  spectacle.  The  guns,  the  drums,  the  alarm-bells  had 
roused  the  whole  country  around.  Ten  thousand  men  had  already  assem- 
bled in  Yarennes,  choking  the  narrow  street  where  the  grocery  stood.  From 
all  directions  the  country  people  were  seen  hurrying  to  the  town,  as  the 
strange  tidings  of  the  attempted  flight  and  arrest  were  spreading  far  and 
wide.  As  the  crowd  increased  in  the  streets,  and  the  gloom  of  night  was 
dispelled  by  the  bright  blaze  of  day,  the  tumult  rose  higher  and  higher. 
All  sympathy  for  the  royal  family  seemed  to  give  place  to  a  feeling  of  in- 
dignation, that  they  should  be  stealing  away  to  lead  foreign  armies  to  make 
war  upon  the  liberties  of  France. 

At  seven  o'clock  the  door  opened,  and  the  king  beheld,  to  his  surprise, 
.in  officer  of  the  National  Guard  of  Paris.  His  dress  was  disordered,  and  he 
was  dusty  and  worn  with  hurried  travel.  The  man  was  greatly  agitated 
when  he  found  himself  in  the  presence  of  the  king,  and  could  only  stam- 
mer, in  broken  and  almost  incoherent  phrase,  the  words, 

"  Sire,  all  Paris  is  being  murdered ;  our  wives  and  children  are  perhaps 
assassinated ;  you  shall  not  go  any  farther ;  sire,  the  interests  of  the  state ; 
yes,  sire,  our  wives  and  our  children." 

The  queen  seized  the  hand  of  the  officer,  and,  leading  him  to  a  humble 
bed  in  the  corner,  where  the  two  royal  children,  Maria  and  Louis,  utterly 
exhausted,  were  sleeping,  said  to  him,  as  she  pointed  to  the  children, 

"  Am  I  not  a  mother  also?"* 

The  king,  interrupting  her,  turned  abruptly  to  the  officer,  and  said, 

"What  do  you  want?" 

"  Sire,"  he  replied,  "  I  have  a  decree  of  the  Assembly." 

"  Where  is  it?"  inquired  the  king. 

"  My  comrade  has  it,"  was  the  reply. 

Just  then  the  door  opened,  and  M.  de  Eomeuf  entered.  He  was  an  aid- 
de-camp  of  the  Marquis  de  la  Fayette  and  a  true  patriot,  while  at  the  same 
time  he  was  well  known  by  the  royal  family  as  a  friend  of  the  king.  He 
entered,  holding  the  decree  in  his  hand,  greatly  agitated ;  and,  as  he  beheld 
the  humihating  condition  of  the  sovereign  of  France,  and  was  conscious  of 
the  most  painful  duty  devolving  upon  himself,  he  could  not  restrain  his 
emotions,  but  bowed  his  head  and  wept  bitterly.  There  is  not  a  generous 
heart  on  earth  which  will  not  be  in  sympathy  with  that  grief. 

*  Mirabeau,  after  his  interview  with  Marie  Antoinette,  remarked  in  confidence  to  a  friend, 
"You  know  the  queen.  Her  force  of  mind  is  prodigious.  She  is  a  man  for  courage." — Dumont, 
p.  211. 


208  THE  FUENXII  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXI. 

As  the  queen  raised  her  eyes  and  saw  M.  do  Romeuf  enter,  she  exclaimed, 
with  surprise  and  indignation, 

''  What,  sir,  is  it  you  ?     Oh !  I  could  never  have  believed  it  possible." 

Romeuf  replied  sadly,  "  We  have  done  only  our  duty ;  but  we  hoped  not 
to  have  overtaken  your  majesties."* 

The  king  took  from  the  hand  of  Romeuf  the  decree  of  the  Assembly  and 
hastily  read  it.  It  was  an  order  enjoining  upon  all  public  functionaries  "to 
stop,  by  all  the  means  in  their  power,  the  abduction  of  the  Jcinrj^  and  to  pre- 
vent the  continuance  of  the  journey." 

The  king  mdignantly  threw  the  decree  upon  the  bed  where  the  children 
were  sleeping,  and  exclaimed,  in  words  whose  truth  he  then  by  no  means 
fully  realized, 

"  There  is  no  longer  any  King  in  France.^'' 

The  queen,  with  pardonable  but  very  injudicious  passion,  picked  up  the 
decree  of  the  National  Assembly  and  threw  it  upon  the  floor,  saying  vehe- 
mently, 

'•  It  shall  not  defile  my  children." 

"  Madame,"  said  Romeuf  sorrowfully  to  the  queen,  to  whom  he  was  much 
attached,  "in  the  name  of  your  safety,  your  glory,  I  entreat  you  to  control 
your  grief.    Would  you  rather  have  any  one  but  me  witness  these  passions  ?" 

The  gentle  reproach  recalled  the  queen  to  herself,  and  she  nerved  herself 
to  endurance,  calmness,  and  dignity.  The  mental  agony  of  that  dreadful 
night  had  already  turned  her  hair  from  auburn  into  the  whiteness  of  snow. 

It  was  greatly  feared  that  the  troops  of  Bouille  might  come  and  rescue 
the  king.  Preparations  for  the  departure  were  therefore  hastened.  Six 
horses  were  harnessed  into  the  carriage,  and  the  TojiA  family,  notwithstand- 
ing they  did  every  thing  in  their  power  to  cause  delay,  were  forced  to  take 
their  seats.  The  queen  would  not  allow  any  one  to  touch  her  son,  but  car- 
ried him  in  her  own  arms  to  the  carriage. 

The  melancholy  cortege  now  commenced  its  slow  progress  toward  Paris, 
escorted  by  four  thousand  of  the  National  Guard. 

M.  de  Bouille,  as  we  have  mentioned,  was  at  Stenay,  at  but  the  distance 
of  eight  leagues  from  Varennes,  with  several  regiments  of  soldiers  under  his 
command,  waiting  the  arrival  of  the  king.  Had  the  king  but  reached  that 
stage  he  would  have  been  safe.  Bouille  was  in  a  state  of  great  anxiety,  and 
during  the  night  had  rode  forward  to  within  six  miles  of  Varennes,  hoping 
to  meet  the  king.  Perplexed  by  the  delay,  and  anxious  lest  he  should  be 
abandoned  by  his  soldiers,  in  whom  he  could  place  but  little  confidence,  he 
rode  back  to  Stenay,  and  had  just  arrived  there,  at  half  past  four  in  the 
morning,  when  he  received  the  intelligence  that  the  king  was  arrested,  that 

*  Nni)f)lcon,  at  St.  Ilelcnn,  Rpctikinp  in  the  lipht  of  subsequent  events,  said,  "  The  National 
Assonilily  never  committed  so  prcat  an  error  as  in  brinpinK  l^nck  the  kinp;  from  Varennes.  A 
fugitive,  and  i)owerless,  he  was  hastcniiiK  to  the  frontier,  and  in  a  fow  hours  would  have  been 
out  of  the  French  territory.  What  should  they  have  done  in  these  circumstances?  Clearly 
liavc  facilitated  liis  escape,  and  declared  the  throne  vacant  by  his  desertion.  They  would  thus 
have  avoided  the  infamy  i.f  a  rcf;icidc  government,  and  attiiincd  tluir  great  object  of  re]>id)lican 
instituticms.  Instead  of  wiiich,  by  l)ringing  him  back,  they  encumbered  themselves  with  a  sov- 
ereign whom  they  had  no  just  reason  for  destroying,  and  lost  the  inestimable  advantoge  of  get- 
ting quit  of  the  royal  fuuiily  witliout  an  act  of  cruelty." 


1791.]  ARREST  OF  THE  ROYAL  EUGITIVES.  209 

the  alarm-bells  were  ringing,  that  the  whole  country  was  aroused,  and  the 
National  Guard  in  Stenay,  Metz,  and  Verdun  were  rapidly  forming  in  de- 
fense of  the  Nation. 

Under  these  circumstances  there  was  but  one  regiment  in  whom  M, 
Bouille  could  repose  any  confidence — the  Royal  German — and  but  one  offi- 
cer, his  own  son,  in  whom  he  could  confide. 

Bouille  was  an  energetic  and  brave  man.  He  immediately  called  out  the 
German  regiment,  and  by  the  influence  of  impassioned  language  and  enor- 
mous bribes  to  every  man  induced  them  to  start  for  the  rescue.  Almost 
with  the  speed  of  the  whirlwind  these  strongly  mounted  dragoons  swept 
the  space  intervening  between  Stenay  and  Varennes.  It  was  a  quarter  of 
nine  o'clock  before  they  reached  the  town.  The  National  Guard,  anticipat- 
ing this  movement,  was  strongly  posted  to  repel  them.  As  Bouille  was  re- 
connoitring in  preparation  for  an  attack,  he  was  informed  that  the  king  had 
been  gone  more  than  an  hour  and  a  half;  that  the  bridge  was  broken 
down,  the  streets  barricaded ;  that  M.  de  Choiseul,  M.  de  Goguelat,  and  M. 
de  Dumas  were  prisoners ;  that  their  hussars  had  fraternized  with  the  peo- 
ple; that  the  garrisons  of  Metz  and  Verdun  were  rapidly  approaching  to 
attack  him,  and  that  the  whole  country  around  was  swarming  with  troops 
and  National  Guards  roused  by  the  peril  of  the  nation. 

The  horses  of  the  dragoons  were  entirely  exhausted  by  the  forced  drive 
of  twenty-four  miles ;  the  soldiers  themselves  gave  manifest  symptoms  of 
hesitation.  All  hope  was  gone.  Bouille  slowly,  sadly,  silently  retraced  his 
steps.  At  Stenay  popular  enthusiasm  had  gained  all  hearts.  His  soldiers 
abandoned  him,  and  he  narrowly  escaped  with  his  life  across  the  frontier  to 
Luxembourg. 

We  must  now  return  to  Paris  to  record  the  scenes  which  transpired  there 
after  the  flight  of  the  king.  At  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the  21st  of 
June  the  servants  at  the  Tuileries,  on  entering  the  apartments  of  the  king 
and  queen,  found  the  beds  undisturbed  and  the  rooms  deserted.  The  alarm 
was  speedily  spread  through  the  palace,  and  flew  from  the  chateau  like  wild- 
fire through  the  streets  and  into  the  faubourgs.  "  The  king  has  escaped !" 
was  upon  all  lips.  The  crowd,  in  countless  thousands,  rushed  to  the  Tuil- 
eries. They  pressed  in  at  the  doors  and  up  the  stairs,  and  explored  all  the 
mysterious  interior  of  the  palace.  The  most  vile  and  degraded  of  the  popu- 
lation of  the  city  are  always  foremost  on  such  occasions.  The  awe  which 
ihey  at  first  felt  soon  gave  place  to  derision. 

A  portrait  of  the  king  was  taken  from  his  bed-chamber  and  hung  up  at 
the  gate  of  the  chateau.  A  fruit-woman  emptied  her  basket  of  cherries 
upon  the  queen's  bed,  and  sat  down  upon  the  bed  to  sell  her  venture,  say- 
ing "  It  is  the  Nation's  turn  to-day  to  take  their  ease."  Some  one  placed  a 
cap  from  the  queen's  wardrobe  upon  the  head  of  a  young  girl.  She  threw 
it  contemptuously  on  the  floor  and  trampled  upon  it,  saying  "It  will  sully 
my  forehead," 

For  several  hours  the  whole  city  was  in  a  state  of  intense  consternation. 
The  departure  of  the  king  was  associated  in  all  minds  with  the  approach  of 
foreign  armies,  the  bombardment  of  Paris,  the  sweep  of  dragoons  through  the 
streets,  the  assassination  of  the  patriots,  and  the  extinction  of  liberty.     The 

O 


210  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXI. 

alarm-bells  rang,  drums  beat  to  arms,  minute-guns  were  fired,  and  tbe  Na- 
tional Guard  rallied  at  all  their  rendezvous.  But  in  the  midst  of  these  alarm.s 
there  appeared  an  apparition  which  excited  intense  alarm  in  the  bosoms  of 
all  the  friends  of  enlightened  liberty  and  order. 

It  consisted  of  vast  gatherings  of  haggard,  wretched-looking  men,  the  most 
worthless  and  abandoned  of  the  population  of  a  great  city,  under  their  own 
fierce  leaders,  armed  with  pikes  and  all  wearing  a  red  cap,  the  bonnet  rouge. 
Santerre,  a  brewer,  an  uneducated  man,  of  vast  energies,  and  of  great  jDOwer 
to  lead  the  passions  of  the  populace,  led  a  band  of  two  thousand  of  these  red- 
caps through  the  streets.  The  indignation  of  the  people  was  now  roused  to 
the  highest  pitch  against  the  king,  and  against  all  who  were  supposed  to  have 
connived  at  his  flight.  La  Fayette  was  loudly  accused  of  treason  in  having 
allowed  the  king  to  escape.  His  coolness  and  presence  of  mind  alone  saved 
him  from  the  fury  of  the  mob. 

At  nine  o'clock  the  Constituent  Assembly  met,  calm,  yet  fully  conscious 
of  the  momentous  state  of  affairs.  The  president  immediately  informed  them 
that  M.  Bailly,  the  Mayor  of  Paris,  had  come  to  acquaint  them  that  the  king 
and  royal  family  had  been  carried  off,  during  the  night,  by  some  enemies  of 
the  nation.  These  noble  men  conducted,  in  this  crisis,  with  their  accustom- 
ed moderation  and  dignity.  Hesitating  to  assume  that  the  king  had  per- 
jured himself  by  violating  the  oath  he  had  so  solemnly  taken  to  sustain  the 
Constitution,  they  adopted  the  more  generous  idea  of  his  abduction. 

La  Fayette,  at  eight  o'clock,  had  been  informed  of  the  escape,  and  imme- 
diately hastened  to  the  Tuileries,  where  he  found  M.  Bailly,  the  Mayor  of 
Paris,  and  M.  Beauharnais,  President  of  the  National  Assembly.  They  were 
both  oppressed  in  view  of  the  momentous  posture  of  affairs,  and  were  lament- 
ing the  hours  which  must  elapse  before  the  Assembly  could  be  convoked 
and  a  decree  issued  authorizing  pursuit.  The  course  pursued  by  La  Fayette 
upon  this  occasion  was  worthy  of  his  heroic  and  noble  nature.  He  proved 
himself  a  consistent  disciple  of  his  great  friend  and  model,  Washington. 

*'  Is  it  your  opinion,"  inquired  La  Fayette, "  that  the  arrest  of  the  king  and 
royal  family  is  absolutely  essential  to  the  public  safety,  and  can  alone  pre- 
serve us  from  civil  war?" 

"  No  doubt  can  be  entertained  upon  that  subject,"  both  replied. 

"  Well,  then,"  returned  La  Fayette,  "I  take  upon  myself  all  the  responsi- 
bility of  this  arrest." 

He  immediately  issued  an  order  to  the  National  Guard  throughout  Franco 
for  the  arrest  of  the  king.*  It  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  two  of  his  oflieers. 
who  set  out  instantly  on  the  pursuit. 

Leaving  the  Tuileries,  La  Fayette  hastened  on  horseback  to  the  Hotel  dc 
Ville.  He  passed  excited  crowds,  who  inveighed  bitterly  against  him,  ac- 
cusing him  of  traitorous  comi)licity  in  the  king's  fliglit.  Arriving  at  thv 
Place  de  GrCsvc,  in  front  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  he  found  one  of  his  officers. 

♦  Our  readers  will  not  pencrally  Hvmiiftthize  with  Lamnitinc  in  tlic  cxclnnintion,  "This  was  a 
dictatorship,  and  the  most  |)orsonal  of  all  dictatorships,  that  a  single  man,  taking  the  placo  of  tho 
Assembly  and  the  whole  nation,  thus  assumed.  He,  on  his  private  authority  and  the  rij,'lit  of 
his  civic  foresij^dit,  struck  at  the  liijcrty  and  perhaps  at  the  life  of  the  lawful  ruler  of  the  nation. 
Tliis  order  led  Louis  XVL  to  the  scaffold,  for  it  restored  to  the  peoide  the  victim  who  had  just 
escaped  their  clutches."— //wior^  of  the  CiiondisU,  by  Alphonse  de  iMiiiaitine,  vol.  i.,  p.  75. 


1791.]  ARREST  OF  THE  ROYAL  FUGITIVES.  211 

the  Duke  d'Aumont,  in  tlie  hands  of  the  infuriate  mob,  who  were  on  the  point 
of  massacring  him. 

La  Fayette  instantly  plunged  into  the  crowd,  by  his  authoritative  voice 
and  gesture  overawed  them,  and  at  the  imminent  peril  of  his  own  life  res- 
cued his  friend.  A  moment's  hesitation,  an  emotion  of  cowardice,  and  both 
would  inevitably  have  perished.  An  infuriate  man,  almost  delirious  with 
rage,  approached  La  Fayette,  and,  shaking  his  fist  in  his  face,  exclaimed, 

"  You  are  a  traitor.  You  have  permitted  the  king  to  escape,  and  now 
France  is  ruined." 

"  How  ruined  ?"  La  Fayette  replied,  serenely  smiling.  "  France  has  twen- 
ty-five millions  of  inhabitants ;  the  salary  of  the  king  is  twenty-five  millions 
of  francs.  Every  one  of  us  gains  twenty  sous  by  Louis  XVI.  relieving  us 
of  this  payment." 

This  pleasantry  created  a  general  laugh,  and  the  words,  repeated  through 
the  crowd,  soon  restored  good-nature.  The  heroism  of  La  Fayette  also  struck 
their  imaginations,  and  he  was  greeted  with  applause  as  he  rode  away. 

He  then  hastened  to  the  Assembly,  which  was  now  convened.  Some  of 
the  deputies  had  suspected  him  as  conniving  at  the  flight,  and  as  he  entered 
a  few  murmurs  arose.  He,  however,  ascended  the  tribune  and  gained  a 
hearing.  He  proposed  that  his  second  officer  in  command,  M.  de  Gouvion, 
to  whom  had  been  especially  intrusted  the  guard  of  the  Tuileries,  should  be 
examined  by  the  Assembly. 

*'I  will  answer  for  this  officer,"  said  he,  "and  take  upon  myself  the  re- 
sponsibility of  his  acts." 

M.  de  Gouvion  was  summoned  to  their  bar,  and  testified  that  all  the  ordi- 
nary outlets  from  the  palace  were  carefully  guarded.  The  king  could  only 
have  escaped  in  disguise  and  through  some  unusual  mode  of  egress,  M. 
Bailly  confirmed  this  testimony,  and  La  Fayette  was  reinstated  in  the  confi- 
dence of  the  patriots. 

The  people,  who  had  suspected  La  Fayette,  refused  to  allow  the  aides 
whom  he  had  dispatched  to  pass  the  barriers.  The  Assembly  immediately 
issued  an  order  sanctioning  the  measures  of  La  Fayette,  and  the  officers  were 
permitted  to  depart.  The  ministers  of  the  king  were  then  summoned,  and 
a  decree  passed  that  all  orders  were  to  be  received  from  the  Assembly  alone. 
With  calmness  truly  majestic,  and  with  unanimity  which  apparently  per- 
vaded every  act,  thought,  and  resolution,  preparations  were  adopted  to  meet 
the  fearful  invasion  which  was  impending. 

It  was  decreed  at  every  hazard  to  defend  the  Constitution.  The  Assem- 
bly assumed  the  Regency.  Couriers  were  dispatched  on  every  road  toward 
the  frontiers  to  arrest  every  individual  leaving  the  kingdom.  Guns  were 
ordered  from  the  arsenals  more  effectually  to  arm  the  National  Guard. 
These  measures  were  so  manifestly  just  and  vital,  that  the  most  interested 
partisans  of  the  old  despotism  ventured  no  opposition. 

While  engaged  in  passing  these  decrees,  M.  de  la  Porte,  superintendent 
of  the  civil  list,  entered,  bringing  with  him  a  private  note  and  a  memorial 
which  he  had  received  from  the  king.  The  memorial  was  dated  the  20th 
of  June,  and  was  written  and  signed  by  the  king.  It  was  entitled  '■'■Procla- 
mation of  the  King  to  all  the  French  upon  his  Departure  from  Parish 


212 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


[CUAP.  XXI. 

In  this  long  recital  of  his  grievances  the  king  complained  that  he  had  only 
a  suspeiisive  veto;  that  his  salary  was  cut  down  to  five  millions  of  dollars 
annually,  which  was  not  sufficient  to  support  him  comfortably  ;  that  he  was 
very  badly  lodged  in  the  palace  of  the  Tuileries ;  that  he  had  been  inces- 
santly annoyed  by  the  National  Assembly,  the  clubs,  and  the  journals,  and 
that  he  was  not  properly  applauded  when  he  appeared  in  public.  He  bit- 
terly censured  the  decrees  of  the  National  Assembly,  and  avowed  that  of 
his  own  free  will  he  left  Paris,  that  he  might  at  a  safe  distance  from  Paris 
regain  his  lost  power. ''^ 

M.  de  la  Porte  placed  this  memorial  and  the  private  note  to  him,  which 
accompanied  it,  u})on  the  table,  stating,  however,  his  wish  that  the  private 
note  might  not  be  read,  "With  delicacy  and  honor  worthy  of  commemora- 
tion it  was  returned  to  him  unopened.  The  memorial  was  read  and  was 
listened  to  in  respectful  silence.  The  Assembly  pitying  the  weakness  of  the 
king  took  no  action  upon  it  whatever. 

When  the  National  Assembly  was  in  session  at  Versailles  there  was  a 
club  organized  by  the  deputation  from  Bretaigne,  called  the  Breton  Club. 
It  was  composed  of  the  patriotic  members  of  the  Assembly.  After  the  re- 
moval of  the  Assembly  to  Paris  this  club  held  its  meetings  in  an  old  smoky 
c'OTivont  of  the  Jacobin  monks,  and  was  hence  called  the  Jacobin  Club.     It 


TIIK  JACHlil.N    ll.L'l 


llistoire  tic  In  Rev.  Fr.,  par  Villiaiund,  p.  13. 


1791.]  ARKEST  OF  THE  KOYAL  FUGITIVES.  213 

rapidly  increased,  admitting  members  not  belonging  to  the  Assembly,  until 
it  numbered  twelve  hundred  members  in  Paris  alone.  Its  affiliated  clubs 
were  established  all  over  the  kingdom,  and  were  filled  with  the  most  ardent 
advocates  of  reform.  In  less  than  two  years  they  numbered  two  thousand 
four  hundred  societies  in  as  many  towns. 

The  Jacobin  Club  soon  became  so  intensely  and  fiercely  democratic,  that 
La  Fayette,  who  was  one  of  its  original  members,  and  others  of  the  more 
conservative  of  the  j^atriots,  withdrew  from  its  tumultuous  gatherings.  This 
club  was  now  rapidly  assuming  the  reins  of  government,  and  marshaling 
the  mob  as  its  resistless  and  terrific  arm  of  defense,  a  weapon  wielded  by  the 
Eevolution  of  incalculable  and  terrible  power.  It  soon  became  the  relent- 
less and  despotic  sovereign  of  France,  more  relentless  and  more  despotic 
than  any  single  sovereign  who  ever  sat  upon  a  throne. 

La  Fayette,  upon  leaving  the  Assembly,  hastened  to  the  club  of  the  Jaco- 
bins, which  already  in  numbers  and  influence  rivaled  the  Assembly.  He 
was  here  also  successful  in  stemming  the  torrent  of  obloquy  which  was  be- 
ginning to  roll  against  him.  As  he  left  the  club  he  met,  on  the  Quai  Vol- 
taire, Camille  Desmoulins,  The  impetuous  journalist,  in  a  state  of  intense 
excitement,  hastened  toward  the  white  horse  on  which  La  Fayette  rode,  and 
exclaimed : 

"  Monsieur  de  la  Fayette,  for  more  than  a  year  I  have  constantly  spoken 
ill  of  you.  This  is  the  moment  to  convict  me  of  falsehood.  Prove  that  I 
am  a  calumniator.     Cover  me  with  infamy  by  saving  the  state." 

La  Fayette  grasped  the  hand  of  Desmoulins,  whose  patriotism  he  respect- 
ed, and  replied, 

"  I  have  always  recognized  you  as  a  good  citizen.  You  will  see  that  you 
have  been  deceived.  Our  common  oath  is  to  live  free  or  to  die.  All  goes 
well.  There  is  but  one  feeling  in  the  Assembly.  The  common  danger  has 
united  all  parties." 

"  But  why,"  rejoined  Desmoulins,  "  does  the  Assembly  affect  to  speak  of 
the  carrying  off  (enlevement)  of  the  king  in  its  decrees,  when  the  king  him- 
self writes  that  he  escaped  of  his  own  free  will  ?  What  baseness  or  what 
treason  in  the  Assembly  to  use  such  language,  when  we  are  threatened  b}" 
three  millions  of  bayonets!" 

"  The  word  carrying  o^,"  La  Fayette  replied,  "  is  a  mistake  in  dictation, 
which  the  Assembly  will  correct.     This  conduct  of  the  king  is  infamous." 

The  news  of  the  flight  of  the  king  created  consternation  through  all  the 
departments  of  France.  It  was  regarded  as  the  signal  for  both  foreign  and 
civil  war,  and  all  expected  immediately  to  hear  the  tramp  of  hostile  legions. 
With  singular  unanimity  the  people  of  France  rallied  to  meet  the  crisis. 
From  the  Gironde  a  message  was  sent  to  the  Assembly,  saying, 

"  We  have  eighty  thousand  men  enrolled  in  the  National  Guard,  who  are 
all  ready  to  march.  But  we  have  not  as  many  guns  as  we  have  intrepid 
and  patriotic  men.     Send  us  arms." 

The  municipality  of  Yillepaux  sent  word,  "We  are  all  ready  to  be  torn 
into  ribbons  rather  than  allow  the  integrity  of  the  Constitution  to  be  vio- 
lated." 

"  Our  fields,"  wrote  the  citizens  of  Allier  and  Nivernais,  "  are  covered 


214  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  •  [ChaP.  XXII. 

with  harvests  and  men.  Men  and  harvests  are  alike  at  the  service  of  the 
iX)untry,  if  she  needs  them." 

*'  We  are  but  few,  but  we  are  determined,"  wrote  the  inhabitants  of  a  lit- 
tle town  in  Normandy.  "  We  have  but  two  hundred  men  capable  of  bear- 
ing arms,  but  they  are  young,  strong,  and  courageous.  They  are  all  ready 
to  rush  upon  any  foe  who  shall  invade  the  soil  of  France." 

Bordeaux  assured  the  Assembly  that  it  would  immediately  send  two 
thousand  four  hundred  men  to  meet  the  foe.  The  whole  kingdom  was  in 
this  blaze  of  patriotic  enthusiasm.  The  ladies,  ever  participating  in  devotion 
to  a  noble  cause,  sent  in  their  jewelry  to  the  Assembly,  saying, 

"  Change  these  ornaments  into  arms.  It  is  not  in  our  power  to  combat 
for  our  country ;  but  we  can  at  least  aid  in  arming  our  brave  defenders." 

Merchants  left  their  shops,  artisans  their  benches,  and  laborers  the  fields, 
to  toil  as  volunteers  in  throwing  up  fortifications  around  the  exposed  towns. 
All  hearts  seemed  to  vibrate  with  the  same  hopes  and  fears,  and  all  hands 
united  in  the  same  patriotic  toils.  The  partisans  of  the  court,  few  in  num- 
bers, were  silent,  waiting  for  the  approach  of  foreign  armies  before  they 
should  throw  off  the  mask  and  avow  their  treason. 


CHAPTER  XXn. 

RETURN  OF  THE   ROYAL   FAMILY  FROM  VARENNES. 

Proclamation  of  Marat. — Three  Commissioners  sent  to  meet  the  King. — Address  to  the  Nation 
from  the  Assembly. — The  slow  and  jjainful  Return. — Conversation  between  Barnave  and  the 
Queen. — Brutality  of  Pe'tion. — Sufferings  of  the  Royal  Family. — Reception  of  the  Kinp  in 
Paris. — Conduct  of  the  Queen. — Noble  Avowal  of  La  Fayette. — Statement  of  the  King.— 
Menace  of  Bouille'. 

Almost  immediately  after  the  flight  of  the  king  the  club  of  the  Jacobins 
became  the  most  formidable  power  in  France.  It  embraced  all  the  desper- 
ate and  the  reckless  advocates  of  reform.  Marat,  one  of  its  most  popular 
and  energetic  members,  the  morning  after  the  flight  of  the  king,  issued  the 
following  proclamation  to  the  populace  of  Paris  :* 

"  People  !  behold  the  loyalty,  the  honor,  the  religion  of  kings.  Remem- 
ber Henry  III.  and  the  Duke  of  Guise.  At  the  same  table  with  his  enemy 
did  Henry  receive  the  sacrament,  and  swear  on  the  same  altar  eternal  friend- 
ship. Scarcely  had  he  quit  the  table  than  he  distributed  poniards  to  his 
followers,  summoned  the  duke  to  his  cabinet,  and  there  saw  him  fall,  pierced 
with  wounds.     Trust  then  to  the  oaths  of  princes ! 

*'  On  the  morning  of  the  19th,  Louis  XVI.  laughed  at  his  oath  and  enjoy- 
ed beforehand  the  alarm  his  fliglit  would  cause  you.  The  Austrian  wom:ni 
has  seduced  La  Fayette.  Louis  XVI.,  disgui.sed  in  a  priest's  robe,  fled  witli 
the  dauphin,  his  wife,  his  brother,  and  all  the  family.  He  now  laughs  at 
the  folly  of  the  Parisians,  and  will  soon  swim  in  their  blood.  Citizens !  tin- 
escape  has  been  long  prepared  by  the  traitors  of  the  National  Assembly. 

*  Marat,  who  edited  "The  Friend  of  the  Peoi.lc,"  was,  says  Lamartinc,  "  tlie  fur>-  of  the  Rev- 
olution. Ho  had  tlie  clumsy  tumblings  of  the  brute  in  his  thuught  and  its  guashings  of  teeth  in 
his  style.     His  journal  snalt  of  blood  in  every  Uiil-."— History  of  the  GirondlKts,  vol.  i.,  j).  1 15. 


1791.]  RETUKN  OF  THE  ROYAL  FAMILY  FROM  VARENNES.  215 

You  are  on  the  brink  of  ruin ;  hasten  to  provide  for  your  safety.  Instantly 
choose  a  dictator.  Let  your  choice  fall  upon  the  citizen  who  has,  up  to  the 
present,  displayed  most  zeal,  activity,  and  intelligence,  and  do  all  he  bids 
you  to  do  to  strike  at  your  foes.  This  is  the  time  to  lop  off  the  heads  of 
Bailly,  La  Fayette,  and  all  the  scoundrels  of  the  staff,  all  the  traitors  of  the 
Assembly.     A  tribune,  a  military  tribune,  or  you  are  lost  without  hope." 

Similar  impassioned  appeals  were  issued  from  all  the  Jacobin  journals, 
and  the  nation  was  roused  to  phrensy.  The  popularity  of  the  king  was 
now  gone,  and  he  was  almost  universally  regarded  as  a  traitor,  plotting  to 
deluge  the  kingdom  in  blood. 

At  ten  o'clock  in  the  evening  of  the  22d  of  June  a  courier  arrived  in 
Paris  with  a  letter  from  the  municipality  of  Varennes  announcing  the  ar- 
rest of  the  king.  The  cry  resounded  from  street  to  street,  "He  is  arrested! 
he  is  arrested !"  Three  commissioners  were  immediately  appointed,  Latour 
Maubourg,  Petion,  and  Barnave,  invested  with  authority  to  secure  the  return 
of  the  king  and  the  royal  family,  and  they  were  enjoined  to  observe  all  the 
respect  due  to  their  rank.  The  AssemlDly  also  issued  an  address  to  the 
French  nation,  containing  the  following  sentiments : 

"  The  king  swore,  on  the  14th  of  July,  to  protect  the  Constitution ;  he 
has  therefore  consented  to  perjure  himself.  The  changes  made  in  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  kingdom  are  attributed  to  a  few  of  the  factious.  We  are 
twenty-six  millions  of  factious.  We  have  preserved  the  monarchy  because 
we  believe  it  useful  to  France.  We  have  doubtless  reformed  it,  but  it  was 
to  save  it  from  its  abuses  and  its  excesses.  We  have  granted  the  yearly 
sum  of  fifty  miUions  of  francs  ($10,000,000)  to  maintain  the  legitimate 
splendor  of  the  throne.  We  have  reserved  to  ourselves  the  right  of  declar- 
ing war,  because  we  would  not  that  the  blood  of  the  people  should  belong 
to  the  ministers.*  Frenchmen,  all  is  organized.  Every  man  is  at  his  post. 
The  Assembly  watches  over  all.  You  have  naught  to  fear  save  from  your- 
selves, should  your  just  emotion  lead  you  to  commit  any  violence  or  dis- 
orders. The  people  who  seek  to  be  free  should  remain  unmoved  in  great 
crises. 

"  Behold  Paris,  and  imitate  the  example  of  the  capital.  All  goes  on  as 
usual.  The  tyrants  will  be  deceived.  Before  they  can  bend  France  beneath 
their  yoke,  the  whole  nation  must  be  annihilated.  Should  despotism  ven- 
ture to  attempt  it,  it  will  be  vanquished ;  or  even  though  it  trium]3h,  it  will 
triumph  over  naught  but  ruins." 

Let  us  now  return  to  Varennes,  and  accompany  the  royal  family  on  their 
melancholy  route  to  Paris.  We  left  the  royal  carriages,  under  the  escort 
of  the  National  Guard,  just  starting  from  Varennes  on  their  return.  It  was 
eight  o'clock  in  the  morning.  The  progress  toward  Chalons  was  slow,  for 
the  carriages  could  only  keep  pace  with  the  guards.  The  heat  was  intense, 
and  clouds  of  dust  almost  suffocated  the  captives.  For  a  time  emotions 
were  too  deep  for  utterance,  and  not  a  word  was  spoken.  But  often  tor- 
rents of  abuse  fell  upon  the  ears  of  the  king  from  the  crowds  who  seemed 

*  The  Constitution  conferred  upon  the  Icing  and  the  Assembly  the  right  of  making  peace  and 
war.  The  king  complained  bitterly  that  he  was  no  longer  authorized  alone  to  declare  war  and 
make  peace. 


216  THE  FKENCU  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXII. 

to  line  the  way.  At  times  the  crowd  was  so  dense  that  with  some  difficulty 
the  guards  forced  their  way  through.  But  for  the  protection  of  their  bay- 
onets, the  whole  royal  family  would  probably  have  fallen  victims  to  the 
popular  fury. 

The  commissioners  from  the  Assembly  met  the  carriages  between  Dor- 
mans  and  Eperuay,  and  immediately  assumed  the  command  of  the  troops, 
and  took  the  royal  family  under  their  charge.  The  whole  populace,  excited 
as  it  was,  respected  the  orders  of  the  Assembly.  Latour  Maubourg,  a  gen- 
tleman of  noble  character  and  an  intimate  friend  of  La  Fayette,  was  ardent- 
ly attached  to  the  Constitution,  while  at  the  same  time  he  was  anxious  to 
save  the  monarchy.  The  tendencies  of  both  of  his  colleagues  were  to  a 
more  radical  democracy.  Hoping  to  excite  their  sympathy  in  behalf  of 
fallen  greatness,  he  yielded  to  his  companions  the  honor  of  being  with  the 
royal  family  in  their  carriage,  while  he  took  the  second  coach,  with  Madame 
de  Tourzel  and  some  other  ladies  of  the  party.  Barnave  and  Petion  entered 
the  king's  carriage  to  share  his  danger  and  to  shield  him  from  insult.  Bar- 
nave  sat  on  the  back  seat,  between  the  king  and  the  queen.  Petion  sat  in 
front,  between  Maria  Theresa,  the  daughter  of  the  king,  and  Madame  Eliza- 
beth, his  sister.  The  little  dauphin,  seven  years  of  age,  sat  on  the  lap  now 
of  one,  then  of  another. 

Barnave  was  a  young  law3^er  of  distinguished  abilities  and  generous  im- 
pulses. He  was  a  man  of  polished  manners,  of  attractive  person,  and  of  ac- 
complished education.  His  generous  heart  was  saddened  by  the  pitiable 
condition  of  his  captives.  He  did  every  thing  he  could,  by  kindness  and  re- 
spectful attentions,  to  mitigate  their  woe.  An  obnoxious  priest  at  one  time 
approached  the  carriage  with  an  ostentatious  demonstration  of  his  attach- 
ment to  the  court  party,  now  threatening  France  with  invasion.  The  exas- 
perated people  fell  upon  him,  and  he  would  probably  have  been  massacred 
but  for  the  energetic  interposition  of  Barnave. 

"  Frenchmen  1"  he  exclaimed,  "  will  you,  a  nation  of  brave  men,  become 
a  nation  of  murderers  ?" 

He  would  have  sprung  out  of  the  carriage  to  have  rescued  the  priest  had 
not  Madame  Elizabeth,  who  had  already  appreciated  his  noble  character, 
held  him  in  by  the  skirt  of  his  ^oat.  She  feared  that  he  also,  now  almost 
their  sole  defender,  might  be  torn  in  pieces.  At  first  the  queen  sat  closely 
veiled  and  maintained  unbroken  silence.  But  gradually  the  character  of 
Barnave  won  the  esteem  of  the  whole  party.  The  king  entered  calmly  into 
conversation  with  Barnave  u|)on  the  momentous  questions  of  the  day.  Bar- 
nave replied  with  courtesy  and  sympathy,  though  still  fluthful  in  his  devo- 
tion to  liberty  and  sincere  in  his  advocacy  of  a  constitutional  throne.  The 
queen,  much  mollified,  at  length  withdrew  her  veil  and  gradually  becmne 
social  and  almost  confiding. 

Barnave  spoke  of  the  great  mistakes  which  the  Royalists  had  made  in  re- 
fusing to  acc(>pt  a  constitutional  monarchi/,  thus  exposing  the  throne  to  entire 
overtiirow  and  tlie  nation  to  democratic  anarchy. 

"What  were  the  means,"  inquired  the  queen,  "  which  you  would  have 
advised  me  to  resort  to?" 

"  Popularity,  madam,"  was  the  reply. 


1791.]  RETURN  OF  THE  ROYAL  FAMILY  FROM  VARENNES.  217 

"  But  how,"  continued  the  queen,  "  could  I  have  obtained  popularity  ? 
It  was  all  taken  fi'om  me." 

"  Ah,  madam,"  said  Barnave,  "  it  was  much  easier  for  you  to  conquer  it 
than  for  me  to  obtain  it."* 

The  queen  subsequently  remarked  to  Madame  Campan  that  Barnave 
"was  a  young  man  full  of  intelligence  and  noble  sentiments,  and  one  ever}^ 
way  worthy  to  inspire  esteem.  A  feeling  of  pride,"  she  continued,  with  can- 
dor which  honors  her  memory,  "  has  caused  him  to  applaud  all  that  tends  to 
smooth  the  way  to  honors  and  glory  for  the  class  in  which  he  was  bom. 
If  power  should  ever  again  fall  into  our  hands  the  pardon  of  Barnave  is 
written  before  in  our  hearts," 

The  royal  family  only  occasionally  alighted  for  a  moment  at  an  inn  as 
the  horses  were  being  changed.  By  day  and  by  night  they  continued  their 
slow  progress,  taking  all  their  refreshments  in  the  carriage.  Barnave,  with 
that  delicacy  which  is  instinctive  in  noble  natures,  never  for  a  moment  for- 
got the  rank  of  his  august  captives.  Being  pressed  by  the  queen  to  take 
some  refreshment,  he  replied, 

"  Madam,  the  deputies  of  the  National  Assembly,  under  circumstances  so 
solemn,  ought  to  trouble  your  majesty  solely  with  their  mission,  and  by  no 
means  with  their  wants." 

Petion  was  a  very  different  character.  He  was  one  of  those  coarse  and 
vulgar  demagogues  who  have  done  so  much  to  cast  dishonor  upon  the  word 
democracy.  His  brutality  disgusted  the  whole  party.  Equality  of  rights 
was  with  him  but  social  insolence.  He  affected  a  rude  familiarity  with  the 
royal  family,  munching  his  food  like  a  boor  and  throwing  the  rind  of  fruit 
and  the  bones  of  fowls  out  of  the  window,  at  the  risk  of  hitting  the  king  in 
the  face.  The  king  made  a  slight  attempt,  by  introducing  conversation  with 
him,  to  awaken  some  sympathy. 

"  It  was  my  wish,"  said  the  king,  "  to  increase  the  force  of  the  executive 
power.  I  did  not  think  that  this  constitutional  act  could  be  maintained 
without  more  power  being  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  sovereign,  since  France 
does  not  wish  to  be  a  republic." 

"  Not  yet,  to  be  sure,"  Petion  brutally  replied ;  "  the  French  are  not  yet 
quite  ripe  enough  for  a  republic." 

No  more  conversation  was  held  with  Petion.  The  movement  of  the  car- 
riages, encumbered  by  the  escort  and  the  immense  crowds  who  thronged  the 
wav,  was  very  slow.  Four  days  were  occupied  in  the  return.  It  was  seven 
o'clock  in  the  evening  of  the  25th  when  the  long  procession  entered  Paris. 
As  the  carriages  approached  the  suburbs  the  crowd  increased  in  density. 
It  had  been  a  day  of  intense  heat.  The  blaze  of  the  sun,  reflected  by  the 
pavements  and  by  the  bayonets  which  surrounded  the  carriage,  was  almost 
intolerable.  The  carriages  were  continually  enveloped  in  a  dense  cloud  of 
dust.  The  inmates  panted  for  breath  and  were  bathed  in  perspiration.  One 
of  the  children  suffered  so  much  that  the  queen,  alarmed,  appealed  to  the 
compassion  of  the  crowd. 

"  See,  gentlemen,"  she  said,  letting  down  one  of  the  windows,  "  in  what  a 
state  my  poor  children  are  ;  one  is  choking." 

*  Memoires  de  Madame  de  Campan,  t.  ii.,  p.  150. 


218  THE  FRENCH  llEVOLUTION.  [CUAP.  XXII. 

A  brutal  wrctcli  exclaimed,  in  an  under  tone,  "  "We  will  soon  choke  3'ou, 
after  another  fiishion." 

Generally  the  crowd  looked  on  in  amazement  and  silence.  Feelings  of 
pity  and  humanity  triumphed  over  indignation.  Great  eagerness  was  of 
course  manifested  to  catch  a  sight  of  the  king  and  queen,  but  well-armed 
guards  on  horseback  surrounded  the  carriages.  La  Fayette  came  out  of  the 
city  to  meet  the  corttige  at  a  few  miles  distance  and  to  assume  the  command. 
Apprehensive  of  violence  from  the  infuriate  populace  of  Paris,  if  the  im- 
mense cortege,  now  numbering  nearly  three  hundred  thousand  and  rapidly 
increasing,  were  to  pass  through  the  narrow  streets  of  the  city,  the  carriages 
were  ordered  to  take  a  circuit  and  enter  by  the  broad  avenue  of  the  Elysian 
Fields,  which  conducted  directly  to  the  Tuileries.  As  an  additional  precau- 
tion he  placed  troops  in  a  deep  line  on  both  sides  of  the  avenue  from  the 
Barrier  de  I'Etoilc  to  the  palace. 

It  was  resolved  that  the  king  should  be  received  in  silence,  without  ap- 
plause and  without  abuse.  Placards  were  posted  every  where  with  the  la- 
conic announcement, 

"  Whoever  applauds  the  king  shall  be  flogged ;  w^hoever  insults  him  shall 
be  hanged."* 

The  procession  now  entered  the  city  amid  the  clashing  of  sabres,  the 
trampling  of  horses,  and  the  confused,  suppressed  murmurs  of  half  a  million 
of  men.  It  was  another  sublime  act  in  that  most  terrible  tragedy  of  time. 
It  can  not  be  described ;  it  can  not  be  fully  conceived ;  it  has  never  been 
paralleled. 

The  crowd-encompassed,  dust-enveloped  carriages  entered  the  city  at  the 
close  of  one  of  the  most  lovely  of  June  afternoons.  The  cloudless  sun,  still 
an  hour  above  the  horizon,  shone  brilliantly  upon  the  spectacle,  gilding 
steeples  and  domes  as  with  rejoicing  light.  The  whole  military  array  of 
Paris,  horsemen,  artillery,  and  infantry,  lined  that  majestic  avenue.  Behind 
them  the  whole  population  of  Paris  seemed  to  flood  the  field,  filling  win- 
dows, balconies,  house-tops,  steeples,  trees,  and  every  point  of  observation. 

La  Fayette  and  his  staff  first  made  their  appearance  as  the  vast  procession 
commenced  its  entrance.  A  numerous  cavalcade  of  mounted  guards  then 
succeeded.  These  were  followed  by  the  two  royal  carriages,  each  drawn  by 
six  horses,  and  surrounded  by  dragoons  whose  sabres  gleamed  in  the  rays 
of  the  setting  sun.  Several  regiments  of  artillery  and  infimtry,  in  compact 
order,  ensued,  and  then  came  a  motley  mass  of  three  hundred  thousand 
stragglers,  men,  women,  and  children,  whom  the  strange  event  had  gather- 
ed from  all  the  suburbs  of  the  metropolis. 

Almost  perfect  silence  reigned.  It  was  like  a  procession  of  the  shades  of 
the  departed  in  the  spirit  land.  There  was  no  ringing  of  bells,  no  explosion 
of  cannon,  no  plaudits  of  the  multitude,  no  bursts  of  martial  bands  in  re- 
quiems or  jubilata.  The  king,  humiliated,  sunk  back  in  his  carriage,  and 
concealed  himself  as  far  as  possible  from  observation.  The  bayonets  of  the 
soldiers  held  in  cheek  the  ferocious  and  brutal  wretches  who  would  gladly 
have  assailed  the  monarch  with  execrations.  The  same  power  closed  the 
lips  of  the  loyalists,  who  would  have  greeted  their  sovereign  with  aiijilause. 
*  "  Quiconquo  o])itIaudira  Ic  roi  sera  buttonnd;  qniconquo  I'insultera  scrn  pondu." 


1791.]  RETURN  OF  THE  ROYAL  FAMILY  FROM  VARENNES.  219 


ijfe&s.^ 


CTf r '  ^'-'^- 


EETITEN   OF   THE  EOYAL   FAMILY    !• 


Thousands  gazed  upon  the  scene  in  silent  sympatlij,  with  their  eyes  bathed 
in  tears.  They  loved  the  cause  of  constitutional  liberty ;  they  wept  over 
the  infatuation  and  folly  of  the  king.  The  reception  was  sublime  in  its  ap- 
propriateness. No  honors  were  conferred  upon  the  king,  for  surely  he  de- 
served none.  No  abuse  assailed  him,  for  that  would  but  have  degraded 
those  who  offered  it. 

The  crowd  grew  more  and  more  dense  as  the  carriages  entered  the  garden 
of  the  Tuileries,  and  the  way  became  so  obstructed  by  the  throng  that  it 
was  with  no  little  difficulty  that  a  passage  was  secured.  As  soon  as  the  car- 
riages arrived  at  the  door  of  the  palace,  near  the  end  of  the  terrace,  the  royal 
family  alighted  and  passed  through  a  double  file  of  the  National  Guard 
drawn  up  for  their  protection.  In  this  hour  of  misfortune,  those  who  had 
been  most  hostile  to  the  despotism  of  the  court  vied  with  each  other  in  their 
endeavors  to  protect  fallen  royalty  from  indignities.  The  Viscount  of  No- 
ailles,  a  warm  friend  of  reform,  and  a  humane,  magnanimous  man,  approach- 


220  TUE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [CUAP.  XXII. 

cd  the  queen,  -who  was  the  last  to  alight  from  the  carriage,  and  offered  her 
his  arm  to  conduct  her  into  the  palace.  The  queen,  with  imprudent  but 
perhaps  pardonable  pride,  haughtily  rejected  the  aid  of  the  friend  of  the 
people,  and,  seeing  one  of  the  partisans  of  the  court  near  by,  asked  his  arm. 

The  hall  of  the  Assembly,  since  destroyed,  looked  out  upon  the  garden 
of  the  Tuileries.  The  excitement  of  the  hour  suspended  the  sitting,  but  it 
was  immediately  resumed  when  the  king  had  safely  entered  the  palace. 
The  king  seemed  perfectly  calm.  La  Fayette,  with  profound  respect  and 
with  his  sympathies  most  deeply  moved,  presented  himself  at  the  king's 
apartment,  and,  making  no  allusion  to  the  unprecedented  scene  which  had 
transpired,  said,  "Has  your  majesty  any  orders  to  give  me?" 

"  It  appears  to  me,"  replied  the  king  with  a  smile,  "  that  I  am  much  more 
under  your  orders  than  you  are  under  mine."  The  conduct  of  the  queen 
in  this  trying  hour  was  peculiarly  unfortunate.  The  royal  family  then 
needed  every  friend  it  could  win.  But  the  queen,  losing  the  control  of  her 
passions,  seemed  to  bid  defiance  to  all  who  were  not  the  partisans  of  the 
court,  and  endeavored  to  gratify  her  resentment  in  goading  those  she  deem- 
ed her  foes  by  those  taunts  of  action  which  are  even  more  exasperating  than 
words. 

Assuming  that  La  Fayette  was  her  jailer,  she  approached  that  noble  pa- 
triot, who  was  willing  to  shed  the  last  drop  of  his  blood  to  save  her  from  in- 
dignities, and  handed  him  the  keys  of  her  trunks.  La  Fayette,  wounded  by 
conduct  so  ungenerous,  and  commiserating  the  condition  of  the  queen,  bow- 
ed, refusing  to  receive  them,  and,  in  tones  saddened  by  pity  and  sorrow,  de- 
clared that  no  one  would  think  of  interfering  with  her  private  property. 

The  unhappy  queen  so  far  forgot  herself  as  peevishly  to  throw  the  keys 
into  La  Fayette's  hat,  which  was  upon  the  table.  This  was  the  conduct  of 
a  spoiled  child.  Such  was  Marie  Antoinette.  It  was  this  spirit  which  ac- 
celerated her  passage  to  the  scaffold.  The  compassion  of  La  Fayette  tri- 
umphed over  resentment.     Overlooking  the  insult,  he  calmly  replied, 

"  Madam,  you  must  pardon  me  the  trouble  I  give  you  in  returning  these 
keys.     I  certainly  can  not  touch  them." 

"  Well,  then,"  replied  the  queen,  pettishly,  "  I  shall  find  other  persons  less 
scrupulous  than  you  are."* 

Such  conduct  on  the  part  of  the  queen  was  ever  adding  to  her  unpopular- 
ity. The  king  was  much  more  considerate.  Though  by  no  means  ecpial  to 
the  queen  in  energy,  he  had  a  flir  more  comprehensive  view  of  the  real  atti- 
tude of  affairs.  Had  the  spirit  of  the  queen  been  dominant,  it  is  possible  that 
the  Revolution  in  its  infancy  might  have  been  crushed  with  an  iron  hand. 
All  the  disciplined  armies  of  Europe  were  ready  to  fall  upon  the  unorgan- 
ized and  unarmed  populace  of  France,  and  to  chastise  them  into  submission. 
Uad  the  moderate  and  humane  spirit  of  the  king  prevailed,  the  Constitution 
might  have  been  accepted;  the  king  might  have  been  revered  and  beloved 
as  a  constitutional  monarcli,  and  France  might  liave  passed  from  despotism 
to  free  institutions  witliout  bloodshed.  But  the  discordant  union  of  the  de- 
fiant energies  of  the  one  and  the  yielding  moderation  of  the  other  rendered 
ruin  inevitable. 

*  Ln  Fayette's  Memoirs. 


1791.]     EETUKN  OF  THE  ROYAL  FAMILY  FROM  VAREXNES.       221 

The  king  entered  into  a  brief  conversation  with  La  Fayette,  in  which  the 
devoted  patriot  said  to  his  monarch, 

"Your  majesty  is  well  aware  of  my  attachment  to  your  royal  person,  but 
at  the  same  time,  you  were  not  ignorant  that,  if  you  separated  yourself  from 
the  cause  of  the  people,!  should  side  with  the  people." 

"This  is  true,"  replied  the  kmg.  "You  follow  your  principles.  And  I 
tell  you  frankly  that  until  lately  I  had  believed  you  had  surrounded  me  by 
a  turbulent  faction  of  persons  of  your  own  way  of  thinking,  but  that  yours 
was  not  the  real  opinion  of  France.  I  have  learned  during  my  journey  that 
I  was  deceived,  and  that  the  general  wish  is  in  accordance  with  your  views." 

The  conduct  of  the  Assembly  in  this  momentous  crisis,  when  the  liberties 
of  France  were  so  fearfully  imperiled,  was  firm  and  noble.  On  the  day  of 
the  king's  return  they  passed  decrees  suspending  him  from  his  functions,  un- 
til they  should  have  heard,  through  a  committee  of  three,  the  declarations  of 
the  king  and  queen.  With  that  delicacy  which  had  ever,  thus  far,  charac- 
terized the  action  of  the  Assembly,  these  decrees  were  passed  in  terms  of 
studied  decorum,  and  the  king  and  queen  were  shielded  from  answering  be- 
fore the  whole  Assembly,  which  would  have  been  required  of  any  offenders 
of  less  exalted  rank.  A  guard  was  placed  over  the  royal  family,  and  was 
made  responsible  for  its  safe  custody.* 

Bamave,  covered  with  the  dust  of  his  journey,  hastened  to  the  Assembly, 
and  gave  the  official  announcement  of  the  return  of  the  king.  Both  the  king 
and  the  queen  had  learned  to  repose  great  confidence  in  this  noble  young 
man,  and  Bamave  assisted  the  king  in  composing  the  declaration  to  be  pre- 
sented to  the  commissioners  of  the  Assembly  in  extenuation  of  his  flight.f 
The  king  could  hardly  have  expected  that  the  assertions  which  he  made  in 
this  document  could  be  credited  by  the  Assembly.  "  Never  was  it  my  in- 
tention," said  he,  "to  leave  the  kingdom.  I  had  no  concert  either  with  for- 
eign powers,  or  with  my  relatives,  or  with  any  of  the  French  emigrants.  I 
had  selected  Montmedy,  because,  being  near  the  frontiers,  I  should  have  been 
better  able  to  oppose  every  kind  of  invasion  of  France,  had  a  disposition 
been  shown  to  attempt  any.  One  of  my  principal  motives  for  quitting  Paris 
was  to  set  at  rest  the  argument  of  my  non-freedom,  which  was  likely  to  fiu*- 
nish  occasion  for  disturbances." 

He  concluded  this  declaration  in  words  characteristic  of  his  whole  course. 
"  I  have  ascertained  during  mj^  journey  that  public  opinion  is  decidedly  in 
favor  of  the  Constitution.  I  did  not  conceive  that  I  could  fully  judge  of  this 
public  opinion  in  Paris.  As  soon  as  I  had  ascertained  the  general  will,  I 
hesitated  not,  as  I  have  never  hesitated,  to  make  a  sacrifice  of  every  thing 
that  is  personal  to  me.  I  will  gladly  forget  all  the  crosses  that  I  have  ex- 
perienced, if  I  can  but  ensure  the  peace  and  felicity  of  the  nation.";]: 

*  Robespierre  was  opposed  to  this  act  of  special  respect,  and  exclaimed, 

'•  What  means  this  obsequious  exception?  Do  you  fear  to  degrade  royalty  by  handing  over 
the  king  and  queen  to  ordinarj^  tribunals  ?  A  citizen,  a  citoyenne,  any  man,  any  dignity,  how- 
ever elevated,  can  never  be  degraded  by  the  law."  f  Thiers,  vol.  i.,  p.  185. 

t  Even  Lamartine  says,  "The  king  addressed  to  the  commissioners  of  the  Assembly  a  reply, 
the  bad  faith  of  which  called  for  the  smile  rather  than  the  indulgence  of  his  enemies." — Lamar- 
tine'n  Hist,  of  the  Girondists,  vol.  1.,  p.  lO.'i. 

"The  Assembly  accepted  the  declaration  of  the  king,  although  it  was  evident  to  them  that 


222  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [CkaF.  XXllI. 

Thus  the  king  pledged  himself  anew  to  support  the  Constitution.  The 
Assembly  received  these  asseverations  in  respectful  silence,  though  it  was 
no  longer  possible  for  them  to  give  the  king  credit  for  sincerity.  While 
the  king  was  thus  apologizing,  Bouille,  who  had  fled  to  the  protection  of 
foreign  armies,  sent  a  menacing  letter  to  the  Assembly,  in  the  name  of  the 
aUied  sovereigns  of  Europe,  containing  the  following  declarations : 

"I  know  your  means  of  defense,"  he  wrote.  "They  are  nothing;  and 
your  chastisement  shall  be  an  example  to  other  people.  Listen  to  the  words 
of  a  man  who  regards  you  and  your  people  but  with  indignation  and  hor- 
ror. I  know  the  roads.  I  will  guide  the  foreign  armies  which  will  assail 
you.  There  shall  not  rest  one  stone  upon  another  in  Paris,  if  you  dare  to 
touch  a  hair  of  the  head  of  my  king."* 

If  Bouille  had  wished  to  provoke  the  nation  to  throw  down  the  head  of 
the  king  as  a  gauntlet  of  defiance  to  the  foes  of  the  liberties  of  France,  he 
could  have  done  nothing  more  effectual  than  the  utterance  of  such  a  men- 
ace. Both  parties  were  now  preparing  vigorously  for  war.  The  emigrants 
at  Coblentz,  proclaiming  that  the  king  was  a  prisoner,  and  could  no  longer 
have  any  will  of  his  own,  declared  monsieur  the  king's  elder  brother  (Louis 
XVIII.)  to  be  Eegent  of  France.  The  most  vigorous  measures  were  adopt- 
ed for  accumulating  troops  and  munitions  of  war  for  the  great  invasion. 


CHAPTER  XXni. 

COMMOTION    IN    PARIS. 


The  Remains  of  Voltaire  removed  to  the  Pantheon. — Decision  of  the  Assembly  on  the  Flight 
of  the  King. — Thomas  Paine. — Views  of  the  Constitutional  Monarchists. — Message  from  La 
Fayette  to  the  King  of  Austria. — The  Jacobins  summon  the  Populace  to  the  Field  of  Mars. — 
Mandate  of  the  Jacobins. — The  Crowd  on  the  Field  of  Mars  dispersed  by  the  Jlilitary. — 
Completion  of  the  Constitution. — Remarkable  Conversation  of  Napoleon. — The  King  formal- 
ly accepts  the  Constitution. — Great,  but  transient,  Popularity  of  the  Royal  Family. 

In  the  midst  of  these  stormy  scenes  the  Assembly  voted  to  remove  the 
remains  of  Voltaire,  which  had  slumbered  for  thirteen  years  in  the  obscure 
abbey  of  Scellitircs  in  Champagne,  to  the  Pantheon  in  Paris.  On  the  11th 
of  July  his  coffin  was  received  with  great  pomp  at  the  barriers,  and  con- 
ducted to  a  pedestal  on  the  ancient  site  of  the  Bastille,  constructed  from  one 
of  the  foundation-stones  of  the  fortress.  Voltaire  had  once  been  imprisoned 
in  that  gloomy  citadel.  Upon  the  pedestal  which  supported  the  coffin  were 
engraved  the  words, 

the  king  did  not  intend  merely  to  go  to  Montmcdy,  where  no  jireparations  had  been  made  to  re- 
ceive liini,  but  that  he  intended  to  go  to  the  magnificent  monastery  of  Orval,  three  leagues  be- 
yond tlie  frontier,  in  Luxembourg,  then  occui)ied  liy  the  Austrians.  Troojis,  commanded  by  the 
Prince  of  Conde,  were  there  awaiting  his  arrival.  "The  flight  of  the  king  was  the  signal  for  the 
loyalist  officers  to  desert.  All  those  of  a  regiment  in  garrison  at  Dunkirk  fled  to  the  Austrians, 
carrying  with  tliem  the  banners  of  the  regiment."— //i.s7.  ile  la  Rev.  Francaise,  par  Villiaumi. 

*  "  Je  connaLs  vos  moyens  de  definse ;  ils  sont  nul.  Et  votrc  chutiment  servira  d'exemple 
au.x  autrcH  peuplos.  Voila  ce  ([ue  voit  vous  dire  un  homme  qui  n'a  ].our  vous  et  votro  pcui)le 
qu'indignation  et  horreur.  Je  cunnnis  les  chemins  ;  jc  guidernis  les  armees  dtrangi!rcs  qui  vou.^^ 
nttafjueront.  Si  I'on  otc  un  seul  cheveu  de  la  X^ic  de  mon  roi,  11  ne  restera  pas  \nhrTO  sur  pitjrre 
Jl  Paris.     Adieu,  messieurs."— i//s^o»re  dc  la  Revolution  Fraui-aise,  par  VillUiumd,  p.  IGO. 


1791.] 


COMMOTION  IN  TAKIS. 


223 


"Eeceive  on  this  spot,  where  despotism  once  fettered  thee,  the  honors 
decreed  thee  by  thy  country." 

The  next  day  a  brilliant  sun  invited  the  whole  population  of  Paris  to  the 
fete.  The  car  which  bore  the  coffin  to  the  Pantheon  was  drawn  by  twelve 
white  horses,  harnessed  four  abreast.  They  were  very  richly  caparisoned, 
and  led  by  postillions  in  antique  attire.  An  immense  body  of  cavalry 
headed  the  procession.  The  wail  of  requiems  and  the  roar  of  muffled 
drums  blended  with  the  booming  of  minute  guns  from  the  adjacent  heights. 
The  sarcophagus  was  preceded,  surrounded,  and  followed  by  the  National 
Assembly,  the  municipal  authorities  of  the  city,  and  by  deputations  from 
all  the  illustrious  and  dignified  bodies  of  France.  Scholars,  laborers,  ar- 
tists, and,  conspicuously,  all  the  actors  and  actresses  of  Paris,  took  part  in 
the  pageant.  Arches,  with  garlands  of  leaves  and  wreaths  of  roses,  spanned 
the  streets.  Groups  of  beautiful  girls,  dressed  in  white,  carpeted  the  path 
with  flowers.  At  intervals,  bands  of  music  were  placed,  saluting  the  car  as 
it  approached  with  bursts  of  melody.  Before  each  of  the  principal  theatres 
the  procession  stopped,  and  a  hymn  was  sung  in  commemoration  of  the 
achievements  of  the  great  dramatist.  It  was  ten  o'clock  at  night  before  the 
immense  procession  reached  the  Pantheon.  The  coffin  was  deposited  be- 
tween those  of  Descartes  and  Mirabeau. 


THE  EEMAINS    OP   VOLTAIRE  TRANSFEEEED  TO  THE  PANTHEON 

It  was  the  pen  of  Voltaire  which  overthrew  despotism  in  France.  It  was 
also  the  pen  of  Yoltaire  which  banished  for  so  long  from  human  hearts 
thoughts  of  God  and  of  future  responsibility.  Thus  then  sprung  up,  in  the 
place  of  the  despotism  he  had  overthrown,  another  despotism  a  thousand 
fold  more  terrible.  With  consummate  genius  and  utter  destitution  of  all 
moral  principle,  he  was  the  demon  of  destruction,  sweeping  the  good  and 
the  bad  alike  into  indiscriminate  ruin.  He  could  fawn  upon  the  infamous 
Frederic,  and  palliate  his  vices.  He  was  ever  ready  to  bow  the  knee  to  the 
paramours  of  Louis  XY.  There  was  no  prostitution  of  genius  which  could 
cause  him  to  blush.  The  venomous  spirit  with  which  he  pursued  the  relig- 
ion of  Christ  is  fully  expressed  by  his  motto,  "  Crush  the  ivretchy     The  gen- 


224  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXIIL 

ius  of  Voltaire  induced  France  to  attempt  to  establish  liberty  without  relig- 
ion. The  terrific  result  will  probably  dissuade  from  any  future  repetition 
of  that  experiment. 

The  club  of  the  Jacobins  was  greatly  roused  by  the  moderation  of  the 
Assembly,  and  began  to  clamor  for  the  entire  overthrow  of  the  monarchy 
and  the  establishment  of  a  repubhc.  On  the  evening  of  the  15th  of  July  a 
meetinty  of  the  club  was  held  at  which  four  thousand  persons  were  present. 
It  was  a  scene  of  wild  enthusiasm.  La  Fayette,  Barnave,  and  others  who 
were  in  favor  of  a  constitutional  monarchy  were  denounced  as  traitors. 
Robespierre  and  Danton  were  the  orators  of  the  evening,  and  they  were 
greeted  with  thunders  of  applause.  A  petition  was  sent  to  the  Assembly, 
which  assumed  the  tone  of  an  order,  demanding  that  the  king  should  be  de- 
posed as  a  perfidious  traitor  to  his  oaths.  It  was  a  meeting  of  the  mob  vir- 
tually repudiating  the  Assembly,  and  assuming  for  itself  both  legislative  and 
executive  power.  The  tumultuous  gathering  was  not  dispersed  until  after 
midnight.  Here  originated  that  spirit  of  lawless  violence  which  subsequent- 
ly transformed  Paris  into  a  field  of  blood. 

On  the  16th  the  commissioners  made  their  report  to  the  Assembly  on  the 
flif^ht  of  the  king.  Both  the  commissioners  and  the  Assembly  were  dis- 
posed to  be  lenient.  They  were  already  very  anxious  in  view  of  popular 
tumult  and  menacing  anarchy.  They  had  still  no  wish  to  overthrow  the 
monarchy  and  establish  a  republic.  Such  a  measure  would  be  full  of  danger 
to  France  in  its  distracted  state,  and  would  exasperate  a  thousand  fold  the 
surrounding  monarchies.  There  was  no  one  for  whom  they  wished  to  ex- 
change their  present  king.  He  was  the  legitimate  monarch,  which  gave  him 
vast  power  over  all  the  aristocracy  of  Europe.  He  had  sworn  to  defend  the 
Constitution,  and  it  was  so  manifestly  for  his  interest  now  to  consent  to  be  a 
constitutional  monarch  that  it  was  hoped  that  he  would  sincerely  accept  that 
popular  cause  which  would  secure  for  him  popular  support.  Though  no 
one  doubted  that  it  had  been  the  intention  of  the  vacillating  monarch  to 
throw  himself  into  the  midst  of  foreign  armies,  and  by  the  aid  of  their  artil- 
lery and  swords  to  force  the  Old  Regime  again  upon  France,  a  very  generous 
report,  exculpating  the  king  from  blame,  was  presented  and  adopted. 

Influenced  by  these  views,  it  was  argued  that  the  king  had  committed  no 
crime.  He  surely  had  a  right,  if  he  wished,  to  take  a  journey  to  Montmedy. 
There  was  no  proof  that  he  intended  any  thing  more.  He  had  violated  no 
law.  The  Assembly  therefore  decreed  that  "in  the  journey  there  was  noth- 
ing culpable."* 

The  Jacobin  press  now  became  very  bold.  "  No  more  king,"  exclaimed 
Brissot  in  the  Patriol ;  "  let  us  be  Republicans.  Such  is  the  cry  at  the  Palais 
Royal,  and  it  does  not  gain  ground  fast  enough." 

♦  The  Assembly,  while  exonerating  the  kiiij;,  condemned  Bouillc'  nnd  three  Guards  du  Corps 
who  accompanied  the  kin^  in  his  flipht.  It  is  impossible  to  refute  the  loijic  with  which  Robcs- 
jiicrre  opposed  this  decision.  "The  measures  you  propose,"  he  said,  "can  not  but  dishonor  you. 
If  you  adopt  tlieni,  I  demand  to  declare  myself  tlic  advocate  of  all  the  accused.  I  will  be  the  de- 
fender of  the  three  (luardsdn  Corp.i,  the  jiovcrness,  even  of  Monsieur  de  Bouilld.  By  the  princi- 
jiles  of  your  committee,  no  crime  lias  hrcn  committed.  Where  there  is  no  crime  there  can  he  no  ac- 
complices. Gentlemen,  to  visit  the  weaker  culprit  when  the  preatcr  one  escapes  is  cowardice. 
You  must  condemn  uU  or  acquit  all."     To  this  no  reply  was  made.     The  Assembly  voted. 


1791.]  COMMOTION  IN  PARIS.  225 

"No  king!  no  protector!  no  regent!"  shouted  Faucliet  in  the Bouche  de 
Fer  (the  Mouth  of  Iron). 

An  address  was  read  to  the  Jacobin  Club  openly  demanding  the  annihila- 
tion of  royalty ;  and  though  this  address  was  received  at  first  with  mur- 
murs— for  the  majority,  even  of  the  Jacobins,  were  not  then  prepared  for 
such  a  step — the  new  doctrine  with  marvelous  rapidity  spread  through  the 
lower  orders  of  Paris,  and  very  speedily  gained  the  ascendency  in  the  club. 
Danton  mounted  the  tribune  of  the  Jacobin  Club  on  the  23d  of  June,  and 
demanded  the  forfeiture  of  the  throne.  "Your  king,"  said  he,  "is  either  a 
knave  or  an  idiot.  If  we  must  have  one  of  the  two,  who  would  not  prefer 
the  latter  ?" 

The  Jacobin  Club  had  now  become  very  formidable.  It  already  num- 
bered eighteen  hundred  members  in  Paris  alone,  each  of  whom  was  admit- 
ted to  its  meetings  by  a  ticket.  Two  hundred  and  fifty  affiliated  clubs  were 
scattered  throughout  the  principal  cities.  It  occupied  the  large  chapel  of 
the  Convent,  and  had  its  president,  its  secretaries,  its  tribune,  its  regular  or- 
der of  business,  and  its  journal,  in  which  its  debates  and  resolutions  were 
published.  Many  of  the  ablest  members  of  the  Assembly  were  members  of 
the  club,  and  their  most  powerful  efforts  of  eloquence  were  addressed  to  the 
club,  regarding  its  voice  as  beginning  to  be  more  potent  than  that  of  the 
Assembly.  The  Jacobin  Club  was  rapidly  becoming  the  great  power  of 
the  kingdom,  with  an  excitable  mob  ever  at  its  disposal  as  its  military  arm. 

The  Journal  of  the  Jacobins,  edited  by  Laclos,  a  confidant  of  the  Duke 
of  Orleans,  overwhelmed  the  monarch  with  a  torrent  of  insults  and  objurga- 
tions. Thomas  Paine,  the  notorious  reviler  of  Christianity,  was  then  in  Paris, 
and  one  of  the  most  violent  of  the  Jacobin  Club.  He  wrote  an  inflammatory 
address,  which  was  posted  on  all  the  walls  of  Paris,  urging  the  peremptory 
dethronement  of  the  king. 

The  views  entertained  by  La  Fayette  and  the  Constitutional  Monarchists 
can  not  be  better  conveyed  than  in  the  eloquent  language  of  Barnave,  in  a 
speech  addressed  to  the  Assembly  on  this  occasion. 

"  I  will  not  dilate,"  said  he,  "  on  the  advantages  of  monarchical  govern- 
ment. You  have  proved  your  conviction  by  establishing  it  in  your  coun- 
trj.  Some  men,  whose  motives  I  shall  not  impugn,  seeking  for  examples 
to  adduce,  have  found  in  America  a  people  occupying  a  vast  territory  with 
a  scanty  population,  nowhere  surrounded  by  very  powerfid  neighbors,  hav- 
ing forests  for  their  boundaries,  and  having  for  customs  the  feelings  of  a  new 
race,  and  who  are  wholly  ignorant  of  those  factitious  passions  and  impulses 
which  effect  revolutions  of  government.  They  have  seen  a  republican  gov- 
ernment established  in  that  land,  and  have  thence  drawn  the  conclusion  that 
a  similar  government  was  suitable  for  us. 

"  But  if  it  be  true  that  in  our  territory  there  is  a  vast  population ;  that  we 
have  a  multitude  of  men  exclusively  devoted  to  those  intellectual  specula- 
tions which  excite  ambition  and  the  love  of  fame ;  that  powerful  neighbors 
compel  us  to  form  one  compact  body  in  order  to  resist  them — if  these  cir- 
cumstances are  wholly  independent  of  ourselves,  then  it  is  undeniable  that 
the  sole  existing  remedy  lies  in  a  monarchical  government. 

"  When  a  country  is  populous  and  extensive,  there  are  but  two  modes  of 

P 


226  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXTTT 

assuring  to  it  a  solid  and  permanent  existence.  Either  you  must  organize 
those  parts  separately,  placing  in  each  section  of  the  empire  a  portion  of  the 
government,  thus  maintaining  security  at  the  expense  of  unity,  strength,  and 
all  the  advantages  which  result  from  a  great  and  homogeneous  association, 
or  else  you  will  be  forced  to  centralize  an  unchangeable  power,  which,  never 
renewed  by  the  law,  presenting  incessant  obstacles  to  ambition,  resists  with 
advantage  the  shocks,  rivalries,  and  rapid  vibrations  of  an  immense  popu- 
lation, agitated  by  all  the  passions  engendered  by  long-established  society. 

"  These  facts  decide  our  position.  We  can  only  be  strong  through  ii  fed- 
erative government,  which  no  one  here  has  the  madness  to  propose,  or  by  a 
monarchical  government  such  as  you  have  established.  You  have  intrusted 
to  an  inviolable  king  the  exclusive  function  of  naming  the  agents  of  his 
power,  but  you  have  made  those  agents  responsible. 

"  Immense  damage  is  done  us  when  that  revolutionary  impetus,  which  has 
destroyed  every  thing  there  was  to  destroy,  and  which  has  urged  us  to  the 
point  where  we  must  at  last  pause,  is  perpetuated.  The  Revolution  can  not 
advance  one  step  farther  without  danger.  In  the  line  of  liberty  the  first  act 
which  follows  is  the  annihilation  of  royalty.  In  the  hue  of  equality  the  first 
act  which  must  follow  is  an  attempt  on  all  property.  It  is  time  to  end  the 
Revolution.  It  ought  to  stop  when  the  nation  is  free,  and  all  men  have 
equal  rights.  If  it  continue  in  trouble  it  is  dishonored,  and  we  with  it. 
Yes !  all  the  world  ought  to  agree  that  the  common  interest  is  involved  in 
now  closing  the  Revolution. 

"  Those  who  have  lost  ought  to  perceive  that  it  is  impossible  to  make  the 
Revolution  retrograde.  Those  who  fashioned  the  Revolution  should  see 
that  it  has  attained  its  consummation.  Kings  themselves — if  from  time  to 
time  profound  truths  can  penetrate  the  councils  of  kings,  if  occasionally  the 
prejudices  which  surround  them  will  permit  the  sound  views  of  a  great  and 
philosophical  policy  to  reach  them — kings  themselves  must  learn  that  there 
is  for  them  a  wide  difference  between  the  example  of  a  great  reform  in  gov- 
ernment and  that  of  the  abolition  of  royalty ;  that  if  w^e  pause  here,  where 
we  are,  they  are  still  kings !  But,  be  their  conduct  what  it  may,  let  the 
fault  come  from  them  and  not  from  us.  Regenerators  of  the  empire,  fol- 
low straightly  your  undeviating  line.  You  have  been  courageous  and  po- 
tent— be  to-day  wise  and  moderate.  In  this  will  consist  the  glorious  termi- 
nation of  your  efforts.  Then  again  returning  to  your  domestic  hearths  you 
will  obtain,  if  not  blessings,  at  least  the  silence  of  calumny." 

Though  these  views  of  moderation  were  opposed  alike  by  the  aristocrats 
and  the  Jacobins,  they  were  accepted  with  applause  by  the  great  majority  of 
the  Assembly.  Aristocrats  and  Jacobins  now  combined  to  disturb  in  every 
possible  way  the  action  of  the  Assembly.  They  both  hoped  through  tumult 
and  anarchy  to  march  into  power.  Mobs  began  to  reassemble  in  the  streets 
of  Paris,  and  cries  of  treason  were  uttered  against  La  Fayette  and  liis  fellow- 
constitutionalists.  Already  in  the  market-place,  at  the  JPalais  Royal,  and  in 
the  hall  of  the  Jacobins,  individuals  denounced  that  Constitution  as  tyran- 
nical which  the  nation  had  so  recently,  with  unutterable  enthusiasm,  sworn 
to  support.* 

*  "The  Rei.ublican  party  now  began  to  appear.    Tlic  struggle,  which  Lay  at  first  between  the 


1791.]  COMMOTION  IN  PARIS.  227 

La  Fayette,  Barnave,  the  Lameths,  Talleyrand,  and  other  illustrious  friends 
of  a  constitutional  monarchy,  sent  a  confidential  note  to  the  Emperor  of  Aus- 
tria, assuring  him  that  the  Constitution  conferred  as  much  power  upon  the 
king  as  it  was  possible  now  to  obtain  from  the  French  nation ;  that  any  in- 
vasion of  France  by  the  allies  would  only  exasperate  the  people,  bring  the 
Jacobins  into  power,  endanger  the  life  of  the  king,  and  that  it  could  not  be 
successful  in  restoring  the  Old  Eegime.  The  king  was  consulted  upon  this 
measure,  and  gave  it  his  approval.* 

Notwithstanding  these  warnings,  the  monarchs  of  Europe,  who  were  trem- 
bling lest  the  spirit  of  liberty,  rising  in  France,  should  undermine  their  des- 
potic thrones,  resolved  to  crush  the  patriots  beneath  the  tramp  of  their  dra- 
goons. Leopold  of  Austria,  Frederick  William  of  Prussia,  and  Count  d'Ar- 
tois,  with  Bouille  and  other  of  the  emigrants,  met  at  Pilnitz,  and  on  the  27th 
of  August  signed  an  agreement  that  the  French  Eevolution  was  an  "open 
revolt,"  "a  scandalous  usurpation  of  power,"  and  that  all  the  governments 
of  Europe  were  bound  to  unite  to  abate  the  nuisance.f 

The  Jacobin  Club,  it  will  be  remembered,  in  a  stormy  midnight  debate, 
had  drawn  up  a  petition  to  the  Assembly  demanding  the  deposition  of  the 
king  as  a  perjured  traitor.  They  wished,  by  a  demonstration  of  popular  en- 
thusiasm, to  terrify  the  Assembly  into  obedience  to  their  mandate.  Accord- 
ingly, the  whole  populace  of  Paris  were  summoned  to  meet  on  the  Field  of 
Mars,  to  sign,  with  much  parade,  the  petition  on  the  Altar  of  Federation,  which 
had  not  yet  been  taken  down. 

At  an  early  hour  on  the  morning  of  the  17th  of  July  the  multitude  began 
to  congregate.  It  was  the  Sabbath-day.  Every  scene  in  the  drama  of  the 
Eevolution  seems  to  have  been  arranged  on  the  sublimest  scale.  Soon  from 
fifty  to  one  hundred  thousand,  including  the  lowest  of  the  population  of  Par- 
is, were  thronging  the  field,  and  clambering  over  the  gigantic  altar.:{:  Two 
men  were  seized,  under  the  absurd  accusation  that  they  were  intending  to 
blow  up  the  altar  and  all  upon  it  by  means  of  a  barrel  of  gunpowder.  The 
cry  of  "Aristocrats!"  which  passed  like  a  tornado  through  the  crowd,  pre- 
cluded any  trial,  and  settled  their  doom.  The  two  unhappy  men  were  liter- 
ally torn  to  pieces,  and  their  heads  were  borne  about  on  pikes  by  brutal 
wretches  who  were  now  beginning  to  emerge  from  dens  of  obscurity  into 
confidence  and  power. 

The  rumor  of  these  murders  and  of  the  threatening  attitude  of  the  mob 
spread  through  the  city  and  reached  the  ears  of  the  Assembly.  The  princi- 
pal ringleaders  of  the  Jacobins  were  nowhere  to  be  found,  and  it  was  assert- 
ed and  generally  believed  that  they  were  in  a  secret  place,  that  they  might 
escape  responsibility,  while,  through  their  agents,  they  were  rousing  the  mob 

Assembly  and  the  court,  then  between  the  Constitutionalists  and  the  aristocrats,  was  now  about 
to  commence  between  the  Constitutionalists  and  the  Republicans."— il%ne<,  p.  104. 

*  Villiaume',  p.  112  ;  Desodoards,  p.  42. 

t  Hist,  de  la  Rev.Fr.,  par  Villiaume,  p.  112.  "The  Emperor  of  Austria,  the  King  of  Prussia, 
and  the  Count  d'Artois  met  at  Pilnitz,  where  they  made  the  famous  declaration  of  the  27th  of 
August,  which,  far  from  impro\-ing  the  condition  of  the  king,  would  have  imperiled  him,  had  not 
the  Assembly,  in  its  wisdom,  continued  to  follow  out  its  new  designs,  regardless  at  once  of  the 
clamors  of  the  multitude  at  home  and  of  the  foreign  powers."— il/z>«e;,  p.  107. 

X  Histoire  des  Montagnards,  par  Alphonse  Esquiros,  p.  49. 


228  THE  FRENCK  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXIII. 

to  a  demonstration  which  should  overawe  the  Assembly.  In  the  midst  of 
the  wildest  imaginable  scene  of  tumult  and  uproar,  the  mandate  of  the  Jaco- 
bins— for  it  could  with  no  propriety  be  called  a  j^etition — was  placed  upon 
the  altar  upon  many  separate  sheets  of  paper,  and  speedily  received  six  thou- 
sand signatures.  This  was  a  new  order,  drawn  up  at  the  moment,  for  the 
original  document  could  not  be  found.     It  read  as  follows : 

"  Eepresentatives  of  the  people !  your  labors  are  nearly  ended.  A  great 
crime  has  been  committed.  Louis  has  fled,  abandoning  his  post.  The  coun- 
try is  on  the  verge  of  ruin.  The  king  has  been  arrested,  brought  back  to 
Paris,  and  the  people  demand  that  he  be  tried.  You  declare  that  he  shall  be 
king.  The  people  do  not  wish  it,  and  therefore  annul  your  decree.  The 
king  has  been  carried  off  by  the  two  hundred  and  ninety-two  aristocrats  who 
have  themselves  declared  that  they  have  no  longer  a  voice  in  the  National 
Assembly.  Your  decree  is  annulled,  because  it  is  in  opposition  to  the  voice 
of  the  people,  your  sovereign.  Repeal  it.  The  king  has  abdicated  by  crime. 
Beceive  his  abdication." 

Nothing  could  be  more  execrable  than  this  usurpation  of  authority  by  the 
mob.  The  Assembly  was  composed  of  the  representatives  of  twenty-five 
millions  of  people,  acting  under  the  calm  deliberation  which  the  forms  of 
law  exacted.  And  here  six  thousand  men,  women,  and  boys,  belched  forth 
perhaps  from  the  dens  of  infamy  in  Paris,  and  arming  themselves  with  a 
mob  of  fifty  thousand  of  the  most  degraded  of  the  populace  of  a  great  city, 
assumed  to  be  the  nation — the  law  makers  and  the  law  executors  of  the 
kingdom  of  France.* 

The  municipality  ordered  La  Fayette,  with  a  detachment  of  the  National 
Guard,  to  proceed  to  the  scene  of  tumult  and  disperse  the  rioters.  The 
moment  the  soldiers  appeared  they  were  received  with  hisses,  shouts,  and  a 
shower  of  stones  from  the  populace.  Several  of  the  stones  struck  La  Fay- 
ette, and  he  narrowly  escaped  death  from  a  pistol-shot  fired  at  him.  The 
attitude  of  the  mob  was  so  threatening  that  La  Fayette  retired  for  a  stronger 
force.  He  soon  returned,  accompanied  by  Bailly,  the  mayor  of  the  city,  and 
all  the  municipal  authorities,  and  followed  by  ten  thousand  of  the  National 
Guard.  The  red  flag,  which  proclaimed  that  the  city  was  placed  under  mar- 
tial law,  was  now  floating  from  the  Ilotel  de  Ville.  The  tramp  of  ten  thou- 
sand mcn,f  with  the  rolling  of  artillery  and  the  beating  of  four  hundred 
drums,  arrested  the  attention  of  the  throng.  The  troops,  debouching  by 
three  openings  which  intersected  the  glacis,  were,  as  by  magic,  drawn  up 
facing  the  throng.  M.  Bailly,  upon  horseback,  displayed  the  red  flag,  in 
accordance  with  the  Riot  Act  law,  and  ordered  the  mob  to  disperse.:}: 

*  "It  is  easy  to  discern  how  many  a  hasty  and  tremulous  hand  has  traced  the  witness  of  its 
fury  or  ignorance  upon  this  document.  Many  were  even  unable  to  write.  A  circle  of  ink  with 
a  cross  in  the  centre  marks  their  anonymous  adhesion  to  the  petition.  Some  female  names  are 
to  be  seen,  and  numcroiis  names  of  children  arc  discernible  from  the  inaccuracy  of  their  hand, 
j;uid('d  by  another."— //w/or^  of  the  Girondists,  TMmartine,  vol.  i.,  p.  12r>. 

This  document  is  still  proscr\-cd  in  the  archives  of  the  municijiality  of  Taris.  On  it  may  bn 
read  the  names  of  Chaumette,  Maillard,  Ilcbert,  Ilauriot,  Santerrc,  and  others  who  subsequent- 
ly became  most  conspicuous  in  deeds  of  cruelty  and  infamv. 

t  History  of  the  Girondist.s,  Lamartine,  vol.  i.,  p.  TJC. 

t  The  Uiot  Act  established  by  the  Constitution  was  a  prcat  improvement  npon  the  Riot  Act  of 
England.     It  declared  that  the  municipal  officers,  if  the  jiublic  i>cace  is  endangered,  shall  do- 


1791.] 


COMMOTION  IN  PARIS. 


229 


The  response  was  a  shout  from  fifty  thousand  men,  women,  and  boys  of 
"  Down  with  the  red  flag!  Down  with  Bailly !  Death  to  La  Fayette  !"  The 
clamor  became  hideous,  and  a  shower  of  mud  and  stones  fell  upon  La  Fay- 
ette and  the  mayor,  and  several  pistol-shots  from  a  distance  were  discharged 
at  them.  The  crowd,  accustomed  to  lawlessness,  did  not  believe  that  the 
municipal  government  would  dare  to  order  the  soldiers  to  fire. 


FUBLIOATION   OP  MABTIAL  LAW  ON  THE  FHXD  OF  MAES,   JULY  IT,  1791 


La  Fayette,  with  mistaken  humanity,  ordered  the  advance  guard  to  fire 
into  the  air.  The  harmless  volley  was  followed  by  shouts  of  derision  and 
defiance.  It  now  became  necessary  to  give  the  fatal  order.  One  volley 
swept  the  field.  The  crash  was  followed  by  a  shriek,  as  four  hundred  dead 
or  wounded  fell  upon  the  plain,  and  as  the  smoke  passed  away  the  whole 
tumultuous  mass  was  seen  flying  in  terror  over  the  embankments  and  through 

clare  that  military  force  must  be  produced ;  and  the  signal  of  this  declaration  shall  be  a  red  flag 
upon  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  and  then  carrying  before  them  a  red  flag  through  the  streets,  wherever 
they,  with  their  armed  force,  go.  On  the  appearance  of  the  red  flag,  all  crowds  refusing  instantly 
to  disperse  shall  be  held  criminal,  and  shall  be  liable  to  be  dispersed  by  force.  In  a  crowd  a  voice 
can  not  always  be  heard,  but  a  red  flag  can  always  be  seen.  The  crowd,  though  thus  dispersed, 
were  authorized  to  depute  six  persons  to  state  their  grievance  to  the  government. 


230  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXIII. 

the  avenues.  The  artillerymen,  with  the  coolness  of  trained  soldiers,  were 
just  upon  the  point  of  opening  their  fire  of  grapeshot  upon  the  panic-strick- 
en fuo-itives,  when  La  Fayette,  unable  to  make  his  voice  heard  through  the 
uproar,  heroically  threw  himself  before  the  cannon,  and  thus  saved  the  lives 
of  thousands.  The  National  Guard,  saddened  by  the  performance  of  a  duty 
as  painful  as  it  was  imperious,  returned  in  the  evening  through  the  dark 
streets  of  Paris  and  dispersed  to  their  homes.* 

The  next  day  M.  Bailly  appeared  before  the  Assembly,  and,  in  terms  of 
dignity  and  manly  sorrow,  reported  the  triumph  of  the  law.  Both  the  Na- 
tional Assembly  and  the  municipality  of  Paris  voted  their  cordial  approval 
of  the  conduct  of  Bailly  and  La  Fayette.  The  Jacobin  press,  however,  gave 
utterance  to  the  fiercest  invectives.  Bailly  and  La  Fayette  were  denounced 
as  murderers,  and  every  effort  was  made  to  exasperate  the  passions  of  the 
populace. 

Amid  such  scenes  of  agitation  and  violence  the  Assembly  concluded  its 
task  of  forming  a  constitution.  The  important  document,  which  was  but 
partially  finished  at  the  great  celebration  on  the  14th  of  July,  1790,  was  now 
completed.  None  were,  however,  fully  satisfied  wnth  the  Constitution.  The 
aristocratic  party  abhorred  the  democratic  spirit  with  which  it  was  pervaded, 
and  yet  wished  to  make  it  still  more  obnoxiously  democratic,  that  monarch- 
ical Europe  might  be  more  thoroughly  exasperated.  The  Jacobins  held  it 
up  to  derision  and  execration  because  it  was  not  democratic  enough.  The 
moderate  party,  represented  by  such  men  as  La  Fayette  and  Barnave,  wished 
to  invest  the  king  with  more  power,  but  dared  not  attempt  any  revision  of 
the  Constitution,  with  the  aristocrats  and  the  Jacobins  both  ready  to  com- 
bine against  them. 

Napoleon  was  at  this  time  a  young  officer  in  the  army,  twenty-three 
years  of  age.  His  brother  Joseph  was  studying  law  in  Italy.  The  whole 
family  had  warmly  espoused  the  popular  cause.  From  the  beginning  Na- 
poleon was  the  ardent  advocate  of  equal  rights,  and  the  determined  foe  of 
mob  violence.  At  this  early  period  of  the  Revolution,  he  expressed  the 
views  to  which  he  adhered  through  the  whole  of  his  career. 

There  was  about  this  time  a  large  party  given  by  M.  Necker.  All  the 
illustrious  men  and  women  of  Paris  were  present.  The  youthful  Na-  •  >- 
leon,  then  quite  a  boy  in  appearance,  and  almost  a  stranger  in  Paris,  was 
introduced  to  this  brilliant  assembly  by  his  friend  the  Abbe  Raynal.  The 
genius  of  Napoleon,  and  his  commanding  conversational  eloquence,  soon 
drew  around  him  quite  a  group. 

"  Who  is  that  young  man,"  inquired  the  proud  Alfieri,  "  who  has  col- 
lected such  a  group  around  him  ?" 

"lie  is,"  replied  the  abbe,  "a  protdge  of  mine,  and  a  young  man  of  ex- 
traordinary talent.  He  is  very  industrious,  well  read,  and  has  made  remark- 
able attainnients  in  history,  mathematics,  and  all  military  science." 

*  There  nrc  many  conflict iiiR  partisan  nccnunts  of  this  event.  The  most  careful  and  thoroiiph 
invcstiKafion  lias  icii  nic  to  the  stnfenient  pivcn  above.  When  the  .Tncohins  cnino  into  power 
they  Hint  Bailly  to  tlio  KniHotiiie  for  this  noble  deed.  La  Fayette  would  have  perished  with  him 
had  he  not  been  sheltered  in  the  dunpeons  of  Olmutz.  Bailly,  in  his  narrative  of  this  afl'air,  says 
that  there  were  but  twelve  killed  and  about  as  many  wouuded. 


1791.]  COMMOTION  IN  PARIS.  231 

The  Bishop  of  Autim  commended  the  soldiers  for  having  refused  to  obey 
their  officers,  who  had  ordered  them,  on  a  certain  occasion,  by  a  discharge 
of  musketry,  to  disperse  a  mob. 

"Excuse  me,  my  lord,"  said  Napoleon,  in  tones  of  earnestness  which 
arrested  general  attention,  "  if  I  venture  to  interrupt  you,  but,  as  I  am  an 
officer,  I  must  claim  the  privilege  of  expressing  my  sentiments.  It  is  true 
that  I  am  young,  and  it  may  appear  presumptuous  in  me  to  address  so 
many  distinguished  men.  But  during  the  past  three  years  I  have  paid  in- 
tense attention  to  our  political  troubles.  I  see  with  sorrow  the  state  of  our 
country,  and  I  will  incur  censure  rather  than  pass  unnoticed  principles  which 
are  not  only  unsound,  but  which  are  subversive  of  all  government. 

"  As  much  as  any  I  desire  to  see  all  abuses,  antiquated  privileges,  and 
usurped  rights  annulled.  Nay,  as  I  am  at  the  commencement  of  my  career, 
it  will  be  my  best  policy,  as  well  as  my  duty,  to  support  the  progress  of 
popular  institutions,  and  to  promote  reform  in  every  branch  of  the  public 
administration.  But  as,  in  the  last  twelve  months,  I  have  witnessed  re- 
peated alarming  popular  disturbances,  and  have  seen  our  best  men  divided 
into  factions  which  threaten  to  be  irreconcilable,  I  sincerely  believe  that  now, 
Tnore  than  ever,  a  strict  discipline  in  the  army  is  absolutely  necessary  for  the 
safety  of  our  constitutional  government  and  for  the  maintenance  of  order. 

"Nay,  if  our  troops  are  not  compelled  unhesitatingly  to  obey  the  com- 
mands of  the  executive,  we  shall  be  exposed  to  the  blind  fury  of  demo- 
cratic passions  which  will  render  France  the  most  miserable  country  on  the 
globe.  The  ministry  may  be  assured  that,  if  the  daily -increasing  arrogance 
of  the  Parisian  mob  is  not  repressed  by  a  strong  arm  and  social  order 
rightly  maintained,  we  shall  see  not  only  this  capital  but  every  other  city 
in  France  thrown  into  a  state  of  indescribable  anarchy,  while  the  real  friends 
of  liberty,  the  enlightened  patriots  now  working  for  the  best  good  of  our 
country,  will  sink  beneath  a  set  of  demagogues  who,  with  louder  cries  for 
freedom  on  their  tongues,  will  be  in  reality  but  a  horde  of  savages,  worse 
than  the  Neros  of  old."* 

The  whole  future  career  of  Napoleon  was  in  consistency  with  the  spirit 
of  these  remarks.  "I  frankly  declare,"  said  Napoleon,  subsequently,  "that 
if  I  were  compelled  to  choose  between  the  old  monarchy  and  Jacobin  mis- 
rule, I  should  infinitely  prefer  the  former." 

On  the  8d  of  September  the  Constitution  was  presented  to  the  king  for 
his  acceptance  with  imposing  ceremonies.f  At  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening 
a  deputation  left  the  chamber  of  the  Assembly,  and,  escorted  by  a  numer- 
ous and  brilliant  guard  of  honor,  entered  the  Chateau  of  the  Tuileries.  The 
multitudes  who  thronged  the  way  applauded  loudly.  The  king,  surround- 
ed by  his  ministers  and  other  high  officers  of  the  kingdom,  received  the  dep- 
utation in  his  council-chamber.  M.  Thouret,  president  of  the  commission, 
presented  the  Constitution  to  the  king,  saying, 

*  The  narrative  of  this  interview  is  given  in  full  in  Chambers'  Edinburgh  Journal.  It  was 
communicated  to  that  journal  by  an  Italian  gentleman,  a  pupil  of  Condorcet,  who  was  present 
on  the  occasion. 

t  The  Constitution  was  commenced  the  17th  of  June,  1789,  and  completed  the  3d  of  Septem- 
ber, 1791. 


232  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXIII. 

"  Sire  !  the  representatives  of  the  nation  come  to  present  to  your  majesty 
the  constitutional  act  which  consecrates  the  indefeasible  rights  of  the  French 
people,  which  gives  to  the  throne  its  true  dignity,  and  regenerates  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  empire." 

The  king,  with  a  countenance  expressive  of  satisfaction,  received  the  doc- 
ument, and  replied  that  he  would  examine  it,  and,  after  the  shortest  pos- 
sible delay,  communicate  his  decision  to  the  Assembly.  On  the  13th  he 
sent  a  message  to  the  Assembly,  which  Barnave  had  assisted  him  in  draw- 
ing up,  and  which  contained  the  following  conciliatory  and  noble  senti- 
ments : 

"  I  have  examined  the  Constitution.  I  accept  it  and  will  carry  it  into 
execution.  The  will  of  the  people  is  no  longer  doubtful  to  me,  and  there- 
fore I  accept  the  Constitution.  I  freely  renounce  the  co-operation  I  had 
claimed  in  this  work,  and  I  declare  that  when  I  have  renounced  it  no  other 
but  myself  has  any  right  to  claim  it.  Let  the  absent  who  are  restrained  by 
the  fear  of  persecutions  return  to  their  country  in  safety.  Let  us  consent  to 
a  mutual  forgiveness  of  the  past  and  obliterate  all  accusations  arising  from 
the  events  of  the  Kevolution  in  a  general  reconciliation.  I  do  not  refer  to 
those  which  have  been  caused  by  an  attachment  to  me.  Can  you  see  any 
guilt  in  them  ?  I  will  present  myself  to-morrow  at  noon  to  the  National 
Assembly,  and  take  oath  to  the  Constitution  in  the  very  place  where  it  has 
been  drawn  up." 

This  frank  and  cordial  assent  was  unanticipated.  It  created  a  burst  of 
extraordinary  joy.  La  Fayette,  in  response  to  the  suggestion  of  the  king, 
immediately  proposed  a  general  amnesty  for  all  acts  connected  with  the 
Revolution.  The  motion  was  carried  by  acclaim.  For  a  moment  all  par- 
ties seemed  again  to  be  united,  prisons  were  thrown  open,  captives  liberated, 
and  shouts  of  fraternity  and  happiness  resounded  through  Paris. 

The  next  day  the  king  went  to  the  Assembly  and  took  his  seat  by  the 
side  of  the  president.  He  was  received  by  all  the  members  standing,  and 
they  remained  standing  while  he  addressed  them.  With  the  most  earnest 
expression  of  sincerity  and  satisfaction,  the  king  said, 

"  I  come  to  consecrate  solemnly  here  the  acceptance  I  have  given  to  the 
Constitutional  Act.  I  swear  to  be  faithful  to  the  nation  and  the  law,  and  to 
employ  all  the  powers  delegated  to  me  for  maintaining  the  Constitution  and 
carrying  its  decrees  into  effect.  May  this  great  and  memorable  epoch  be 
that  of  the  re-establishment  of  peace,  and  become  the  gage  of  the  happiness 
of  the  people  and  the  prosperity  of  the  empire." 

As  the  king  withdrew  the  whole  Assembly  enthusiastically  escorted  hun 
to  his  palace.  But  it  was  a  bitter  trial  for  the  once  absolute  monarch  to  lay 
aside  his  unlimited  power  and  become  a  constitutional  king.  The  monarch, 
though  feeling  humiliated,  was  still  enabled  to  maintain  his  aspect  of  smiles 
and  composure  until  he  reached  the  privacy  of  his  own  apartment.  He 
then  threw  himself  into  a  chair,  and,  losing  all  control,  burst  into  tears.*  A 
weeping  king  excites  universal  sympatiiy.  The  h(iroic  struggles  of  twenty 
millions  of  people  to  gain  tiicir  liberties  also  secure  the  sympathy  and  the 
admiration  of  every  n(jl>le  heart. 

*  Mndarac  Campnu's  Memoirs,  vol.  ii.,  p.  157. 


1791.]  COMMOTION  IN  PAEIS.  233 

On  the  18tli  of  November  the  Constitution  was  proclaimed  in  the  streets 
of  Paris.  Every  thing  was  clone  which  art  could  devise  to  invest  the  scene 
with  splendor. 


PBOCLAilATION   OP  THE  CONSTITUTION   IN   THE  MAEKET-PLAOE. 

Paris  was  again  in  a  delirium  of  joy.  The  bells  rang,  salvos  of  artillery 
were  fired,  and  the  acclamations  of  hundreds  of  thousands,  blending  with 
peals  of  music  from  martial  bands,  filled  the  air  with  a  confusion  of  all  the 
sounds  of  exultation.     The  people  were  never  weary  of  calling  the  king,  the 


234  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXIII. 

queen,  the  children,  to  the  windows  of  the  palace,  and  whenever  they  ap- 
peared they  were  greeted  with  outbursts  of  love  and  joy.* 

On  the  18th  there  was  another  magnificent  festival  on  the  Field  of  Mars. 
The  Constitution  was  read  to  the  people.  It  was  accepted  by  them  with  the 
simultaneous  shout  from  three  hundred  thousand  voices  of  "  Vive  la  Nation/ 
Vive  le  RoiT  No  discordant  cry  was  heard.  "  After  the  tempest,  those 
who  have  been  beaten  by  it,  as  well  as  those  who  have  not  suffered,  enjoy 
in  common  the  serenity  of  the  sky."  In  the  evening  Paris  and  all  France 
blazed  vnXh.  illuminations  and  resounded  with  the  shout  of  enfranchised  mil- 
hons.  Balloons  rose,  from  which  copies  of  the  Constitution  were  scattered 
as  snow-flakes  upon  the  multitude.  The  Elysian  Fields,  from  the  Arc  de 
I'Etoile  to  the  Tuileries,  was  brilliant  with  garlands  and  stars  and  pyramids 
of  flame.  Every  tree  blazed  with  quivering  tongues  of  fire.  Majestic  or- 
chestras pealed  forth  the  notes  of  national  triumph,  and  a  multitude  which 
no  man  could  number  filled  that  most  magnificent  avenue  of  Europe  with 
plays,  dances,  shouts,  and  songs  of  exultation. 

La  Fayette,  on  his  well-known  white  charger,  rode  at  the  head  of  his 
stajBf  through  the  almost  impenetrable  throng,  accompanied  by  the  king,  the 
queen,  and  their  children.  Enthusiasm  now  reached  its  culminating  point. 
Hats  were  thrown  into  the  air,  and  from  the  whole  mighty  mass,  as  by  elec- 
tric sympathy,  rose  the  cry  "T7ye  le  Roi!  Vive  laReine!  Vive  le  Dauphin  P'' 

The  king  and  queen  were  overjoyed  in  view  of  the  happiness  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  of  the  love  thus  spontaneously  and  enthusiastically  manifested  for 
the  royal  family.  The  queen  was  bewildered  by  so  marvelous  a  change. 
But  four  weeks  before  the  royal  family  were  conducted  as  captives  through 
that  same  avenue,  surrounded  by  the  same  countless  throng,  and  not  a  voice 
bade  them  welcome.  They  could  then  read  in  every  eye  the  expression  of 
hatred  and  defiance.  The  contrast  led  the  queen  to  exclaim,  "  They  are  no 
longer  the  same  people."  Even  her  proud  heart  was  touched,  and  she,  for 
the  first  time,  began  to  feel  some  respect  for  popular  rights.  Returning  to 
the  palace,  of  her  own  accord  she  stepped  out  upon  the  balcony,  and  pre- 
sented her  children  to  the  crowd  who  thronged  the  terrace.  They  received 
such  greeting  as  can  only  come  from  hearts  glowing  with  sincerity  and  joy. 
These  days  of  rejoicing  were  terminated  by  an  offering  of  thanksgiving  to 
God,  as  the  sublime  chant  of  the  Te  Deuni  was  sung  in  the  cathedral  of  Notre 
Dame. 

The  Constituent  Assembly,  having  now  completed  its  task,  prepared  to 
dissolve.  As  a  conclusive  reply  to  all  who  had  accused  it  of  ambitious  de- 
signs to  perpetuate  its  powers,  and  as  a  magnanimous  display  of  patriotic 
disinterestedness,  it  decreed  that  none  of  its  members  should  be  re-eligible 
to  the  next  Legislature. 

At  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  the  30th  of  September,  the  king,  sur- 
round(.-d  l)y  his  ministers,  entered  the  Assembly.  He  was  no  longer  the 
]iosUig<3  of  the  nation,  but  its  recognized  sovereign;  the  guard  which  the  law 
assigned  him  being  now  placed  under  his  own  command.  LTpon  his  entrance 
the  applause  was  so  enthusiastic  and  prolonged  that  for  some  time  he  was 
unable  to  commence  speaking.     lie  then  said, 

*  All  rontcinporarj-  Imtory  unites  iu  testifying  to  the  enthusiasm  disjilayed  on  this  occasion. 


1791.]  COMMOTION  IN  PARIS.  235 

"  Gentlemen,  after  the  completion  of  the  Constitution,  you  have  resolved 
on  to-day  for  the  termination  of  your  labors.  I  will  exercise  all  the  power 
confided  to  me  in  assuring  to  the  Constitution  the  respect  and  obedience 
which  is  its  due.  For  you,  gentlemen,  who,  during  a  long  and  painful  career, 
have  evinced  an  indefatigable  zeal  in  your  labors,  there  remains  a  last  duty 
to  fulfill,  when  you  are  scattered  over  the  face  of  the  empire.  It  is  to  en- 
lighten your  fellow-citizens  as  to  the  spirit  of  the  laws  you  have  made ;  to 
purify  and  unite  opinions  by  the  example  you  will  give  to  the  love  of  order 
and  submission  to  the  laws.  Be,  on  your  return  to  your  homes,  the  inter- 
preters of  my  sentiments  to  your  fellow-citizens.  Tell  them  that  the  king 
will  always  be  their  first  and  most  faithful  friend ;  that  he  desires  to  be  loved 
by  them,  and  can  only  be  happy  with  them  and  by  them." 

The  king  left  the  hall  amid  the  loudest  acclamations.  They  were  the  last 
with  which  he  was  greeted.  Thouret,  the  president  of  the  Assembly,  as 
soon  as  the  king  had  retired,  said  in  a  loud  voice,  "  The  Constituent  Assem- 
bly pronounces  its  mission  accomplished,  and  that  its  sittings  now  termi- 
nate." Thus  closed  the  truly  patriotic  Assembly.  It  had  accomplished  the 
greatest  and  the  most  glorious  revolution  ever  achieved  in  so  short  a  time, 
and  with  so  little  violence.  Eepressing  alike  the  despotism  of  aristocracy 
and  the  lawlessness  of  the  mob,  it  established  a  constitution  containing  the 
essential  elements  of  liberty  protected  by  law.  Under  this  constitution 
France  might  have  advanced  in  prosperity.  But  the  aristocrat  and  the  Jaco- 
bin combined  in  its  overthrow.    They  were  fatally  successful  in  their  efforts. 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  how  differently  the  same  events  were  regarded 
by  different  minds.  Bertrand  de  Moleville,  a  warm  partisan  of  the  aristoc- 
racy, says, 

"  Thus  terminated  this  guilty  Assembly,  whose  vanity,  ambition,  cupidity, 
ingratitude,  ignorance,  and  audacity  have  overturned  the  most  ancient  and 
the  noblest  monarchy  of  Europe,  and  rendered  France  the  theatre  of  every 
crime,  of  every  calamity,  and  of  the  most  horrible  catastrophe.  Can  these 
treacherous  representatives  ever  justify  themselves  in  the  eyes  of  the  nation 
for  having  so  unworthily  abused  their  confidence  and  their  powers?" 

On  the  other  hand,  the  democratic  historians,  the  "  Two  Friends  of  Lib- 
erty," while  regretting  that  the  Constitution  was  not  more  thoroughly  dem- 
ocratic, say, 

"  The  Constitution  of  1791,  with  all  its  faults,  forever  deserves  the  grati- 
tude of  the  French  people,  because  it  has  destroyed,  never  to  return,  every 
trace  of  feudalism,  imposts  the  most  fatal  to  agriculture,  the  privileges  of 
particular  persons,  the  usurpations  of  the  priesthood  over  the  civil  power, 
and  the  proud  pretensions  of  ancient  corporations ;  because  it  has  realized 
what  philosophy  for  ages  has  in  vain  wished,  and  what  monarchs  the  most 
absolute  have  never  dared  to  undertake;  and  because  it  has  established 
that  uniformity  which  no  one  could  have  ever  hoped  for  in  an  empire  form- 
ed by  gradual  accretions  from  time  to  time,  and  with  which,  under  a  good 
government,  there  is  no  prosperity  which  France  may  not  realize." 

But  whatever  may  be  the  estimate  which  political  partisans  may  place 
upon  the  labors  of  the  Assembly,  no  intelligent  man  will  now  deny  that  the 
great  majority  of  that  body  were  true  patriots,  sincerely  desiring  the  welfare 


236  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXIV. 

of  their  country.  It  will  be  admitted  by  all  that  they  abolished  judicial  tor- 
ture, placed  all  men  upon  the  basis  of  equality  in  the  eye  of  the  law,  annul- 
led obnoxious  privileges,  introduced  vast  reform  into  commercial  jurispru- 
dence, established  liberty  of  worship  and  of  conscience,  suppressed  monas- 
tic vows,  abolished  the  execrable  system  of  leiires  de  cachet^  rendered  per- 
sonal liberty  sacred,  introduced  equality  of  taxation,  and  swept  away  those 
provincial  jealousies  and  that  interior  line  of  custom-houses  which  had  for 
ages  seriously  embarrassed  the  internal  trade  of  the  kingdom.  All  feudal 
rights  were  abrogated,  industry  encouraged,  and  the  citizens  of  the  kingdom 
were  enrolled  into  a  National  Guard,  for  the  preservation  of  domestic  peace 
and  to  resist  aggression. 

This  most  noble  reform  combined  Europe  assailed  with  all  its  marshaled 
bayonets.  The  crime  deluged  the  Continent  in  woe.  After  nearly  a  quar- 
ter of  a  century  of  conflagration  and  carnage,  French  liberty  was  trampled 
into  the  bloody  mire  of  Waterloo,  and  the  Old  Regime  was  reinstated. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

THE  APPROACH  OF  WAR. 


Sentiments  of  the  Kinp  and  Queen  upon  the  Constitution. — The  Legislative  Assembly. — Its  dem- 
ocratic Spirit. — The  King's  Speech. — Painful  Scene. — The  Queen  plans  Escape. — Rint  in  the 
Theatre. — Infatuation  of  the  Aristocrats. — Insult  to  the  Duke  of  Orleans. — Embarrassment 
of  the  Allies. — Replies  to  the  King  from  the  European  Powers. — Tlie  Emigrants  at  Coblcntz. 
— The  King's  Veto. — Letters  of  the  King  to  his  Brothers. — Their  Replies. — Cruel  Edicts. — 
Pdtion  chosen  Mayor. — The  King  visits  the  Assembly. — Rise  of  the  Republican  Party. 

The  monarch  of  France,  though  deprived  of  absolute  power,  was  still  in 
the  enjoyment  of  extensive  prerogatives.  The  Assembly  had  conferred 
upon  him  the  title  of  King  of  the  French,  an  annual  income  of  five  millions 
of  dollars,  the  command  of  the  armies,  and  the  right  of  suspending  the  na- 
tional decrees.  The  king  and  queen  were  probably  at  this  time  sincere  in 
their  resolve  to  be  resigned  to  the  change,  and  to  accept  the  Constitution. 
In  the  first  interview  which  Bertrand  de  Moleville,  a  Royalist  whom  the 
king  had  appointed  Minister  of  Marine,  had  with  the  king,  the  following  re- 
marks were  made  by  the  monarch : 

"  In  my  opinion  the  Constitution  has  serious  defects,  and  if  I  had  been  at 
liberty  to  address  some  observations  to  the  Assembly,  very  beneficial  re- 
forms might  have  resulted  from  them.  But  now  it  is  too  late,  and  I  have 
accepted  it,  such  as  it  is.  I  have  sworn  to  cause  it  to  be  executed,  and  I 
ought  to  be,  and  will  be,  strictly  faitlifid  to  my  oath." 

"But  may  I  be  permitted,"  inquired  the  minister,  "to  ask  your  majesty 
if  the  queen's  opinion  on  this  point  agrees  with  the  king's?" 

"Yes,  i)rcciscay,"  said  the  king;  "she  will  tell  you  so  herself." 

"  I  went  down  stairs,"  continues  Bertrand  de  Mc^levillc  in  his  interesting 
narrative,  "  to  the  queen,  who,  after  declaring  with  extreme  kindness  that 
she,  as  well  as  the  king,  felt  under  much  obligation  to  me  for  having  ac- 
cepted the  ministry  under  such  critical  circumstances,  added  these  words : 

"  '  The  king  has  acquaivitcd  you  with  liis  intentions  relative  to  the  Consti- 


1791.]  THE  APPROACH  OF  WAE.  237 

tution.  Do  you  think  that  the  only  plan  ke  has  to  follow  is  to  adhere  to 
his  oath  ?'  • 

"  '  Most  certainly,  madam,'  I  replied. 

"  '  Well,  then,'  said  the  queen,  '  be  assured  that  nothing  shall  induce  us 
to  change.  Come,  M.  Bertrand,  courage !  I  hope  that  with  patience,  firm- 
ness, and  perseverance,  all  is  not  yet  lost.'  "* 

Just  before  the  dissolution  of  the  Constituent  Assembly,  elections  had  been 
held,  in  accordance  with  the  provisions  of  the  Constitution,  to  choose  the  first 
Legislative  Assembly.  This  legislature  was  to  be  renewed  every  two  years. 
jSTo  member  of  the  Constitutional  Assembly  was  eligible.  The  Legislative 
Assembly,  consequently,  was  composed  mostly  of  obscure  men  with  but  little 
political  experience.     They  numbered  seven  hundred  and  forty -five. 

The  Legislative  Assembly  was  convened  the  1st  day  of  October,  the  day 
after  the  dissolution  of  the  Constituent  Assembly,  and  in  the  hall  which 
had  been  occupied  by  that  body.f  At  its  first  sitting  it  was  observed  that 
the  exterior  aspect  of  the  Assembly  had  greatly  changed ;  that  nearly  aU 
the  white  heads  had  disappeared ;  and  that  France  had  fallen  into  the  hands 
of  young  men.  Sixty  of  the  deputies  were  under  twenty -six  years  of  age. 
The  spirit  of  the  new  Assembly  was  developed  in  its  first  decrees.  A 
deputation  was  sent  to  inform  the  king  that  the  Assembly  was  organized. 
The  president  of  the  deputation,  in  conformity  with  court  etiquette,  ap- 
proached the  king,  and,  when  at  four  paces  distance,  bowed  and  said, 

"  Sire,  the  Assembly  is  formed,  and  has  deputed  us  to  inform  your  maj- 
esty." 

Upon  reporting  the  result  of  their  mission,  some  of  the  deputies  were 
offended  that  the  ancient  titles  of  royalty  had  been  retained. 

"  I  demand,"  cried  one,  "  that  this  title  of  majesty  be  no  longer  employed." 

"  I  demand,"  exclaimed  another,  "  that  this  title  of  Sire  be  abolished.  It 
is  only  an  abbreviation  of  Seigneur,  which  recognizes  a  sovereignty  in  the 
man  to  whom  it  is  given.  There  is  no  other  majesty  here  than  that  of  the 
law  and  the  people.  Let  us  leave  the  king  no  other  title  than  that  of  King 
of  the  French." 

In  the  room  there  was  a  gilded  chair,  raised  above  the  seat  of  the  pres- 
ident, which  was  occupied  by  the  king  when  he  attended  the  Assembly. 
It  had  always  been  a  respectful  custom  for  the  members  to  remain  uncov- 
ered when  the  king  was  present,  and  to  stand  while  he  addressed  them.  It 
was  the  custom  for  the  kmg,  in  addressing  the  Assembly,  to  be  seated  and 
to  wear  his  hat. 

"Let  this  scandalous  gilded  chair  be  removed,"  another  said.  "Let  an 
equality  exist  between  us  and  the  king  as  regards  ceremony.     When  he  is 

*  Bertrand  de  Moleville,  t.  vi.,  p.  22.     See  also  Memoires  de  Madame  Campan,  t.  ii.,  p.  161. 

t  "This  Assembly  (the  Constituent)  had  consisted  of  the  most  imposing^  body  of  men  that 
had  ever  represented,  not  only  France,  but  the  human  race.  The  men  of  the  Constituent  Assem- 
bly were  not  Frenchmen,  they  were  universal  men.  They  were,  and  they  felt  themselves  to  be, 
workmen  of  God,  called  by  him  to  restore  social  reason,  and  found  right  and  justice  throughout 
the  univei"se.  The  declaration  of  the  Rights  of  Man  proves  this.  Thus  there  was  not  one  of  its 
apostles  who  did  not  proclaim  peace  among  the  nations.  Mirabcau,  La  Fayette,  Robespierre 
himself,  erased  war  from  the  symbol  which  they  presented  to  the  nation." — Hist,  of  the  Girond- 
ists, hy  Lamartine,  vol.  i.,  p.  250. 


238  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXIV. 

uncovered  and  standing,  let  us  stand  and  uncover  our  heads.  When  he  is 
covered  and  seated,  let  us  sit  and  wear  our  hats," 

These  decrees,  abolishing  the  respect  due  to  rank,  and  the  courtesies  so 
essential  to  mitigate  the  ferocity  of  political  strife,  were  promptly  passed. 
The  Constitutional  party  throughout  France  were  generally  mortified  and 
alarmed,  and  the  king  was  deeply  wounded.  He  declared  that  the  Consti- 
tution did  not  require  of  him  to  expose  the  monarchical  dignity  to  insult, 
and  that  he  would  not  preside  at  the  opening  of  the  legislative  body  in  per- 
son, but  would  assign  the  duty  to  his  ministers.*  Alarmed  by  the  decision 
of  the  king  and  by  the  indications  of  public  disapproval,  the  Assembly,  after 
a  debate  of  two  days,  repealed  the  obnoxious  decrees. 

The  Jacobins  regarded  the  repeal  as  a  defeat,  and  in  the  Assembly,  in 
their  clubs,  and  in  their  journals,  did  what  they  could  to  rouse  the  indigna- 
tion of  the  populace.  The  royalist  journals  also  united  with  them  in  the 
attempt  to  overwhelm  this  return  to  moderation  with  derision.  "  See,"  they 
cried,  "  how  contemptible  is  this  revolution ;  how  conscious  of  its  own  weak- 
ness. See,  in  two  days,  how  often  it  has  given  itself  the  lie."  The  Eoyal- 
ists  still  persisted  in  their  endeavor  to  goad  the  revolutionary  party  to  every 
conceivable  outrage,  that  Europe  might  be  more  effectually  roused  to  crush 
the  Kcvolution.f 

On  the  7th  the  king  proceeded  to  the  Assembly.  He  was  received,  "w- 
parently,  with  unanimous  applause,  some  shouting  energetically  "Fu'c  le 
RoiP''  and  others,  still  more  energetically,  "Fwe  sa  majesieP^  The  king's 
speech  was  conciliatory,  and  was  received  with  warm  approval.  Tb-^  mem- 
bers of  the  Assembly,  however,  retained  their  seats  while  the  king  was  ad- 
dressing them.  Louis  regarded  this  as  an  insult,  and  it  wounded  him  most 
keenly. 

The  queen  attended  the  sitting  in  a  private  box.  The  disrespect  with 
which  the  king  was  treated  pierced  her  very  soul.  She  sat  as  in  a  stupor  of 
silence,  her  countenance,  pallid  and  wan,  betraying  the  bitterness  of  her  an- 
guish. The  king,  upon  leaving  the  Assembly,  hastened  immediately  to  the 
private  apartment  of  the  queen.  He  was  so  pale  and  agitated  that  the  queen 
uttered  an  exclamation  of  surprise.  The  unhappy  monarch  threw  himself 
upon  a  sofa,  and,  pressing  a  handkerchief  to  his  eyes,  said, 

"  All  is  lost !  Ah !  madam,  and  you  are  witness  to  this  humiliation. 
What !  you  are  come  to  France  to  see — " 

"  These  words,"  writes  Madame  Campan,  "  were  interrupted  by  sobs.  The 
queen  threw  herself  upon  her  knees  before  him,  and  pressed  him  in  her  arms. 
I  rcmain(!d  with  them,  not  from  any  blamable  curiosity,  but  from  a  stupefac- 
tion which  rendered  me  incapable  of  determining  what  I  ought  to  do.    The 

*  Lamartinc,  in  cautioiis  npolopy  for  those  decrees,  saj-s,  "Tlie  people  wns  a  slave,  freed  bat 
yesterday,  and  who  still  trcmhlcd  at  the  clank  of  his  chains." — Ilist.  of  the  O'iromlists,  vol.  i.,  p, 
210. 

t  "The  aristocratic  party  preferred  any  thinp,  even  the  Jacobins,  to  the  establishment  of  the 
constitutional  laws.  The  most  unbridled  disorders  seemed  preferable,  because  they  buoyed  up 
the  hope  of  a  total  change ;  and,  twenty  times  over,  upon  occasions  when  ])ersons  but  little  ac- 
quainted with  the  secret  policy  of  the  court  ex])resRed  the  apprehensions  they  entertained  of  the 
pojiular  societies,  the  initiated  answered  that  a  sincere  Royalist  ought  to  favor  the  Jacobins."— 
Madame  Campan,  vol.  ii.,  p.  1G2. 


1791.]  THE  APPROACH  OF  WAR.  239 

queen  said  to  me,  '  Oh  go,  go,''  with  an  accent  whicli  expressed,  '  Do  not  re- 
main to  witness  the  dejection  and  despair  of  your  sovereign.'  I  witlidrew, 
struck  with  the  contrast  between  the  shouts  of  joy  without  the  palace,  and 
the  profound  grief  which  oppressed  the  sovereigns  witliin." 

The  queen  resolved  immediately  to  leave  Paris  and  to  return  to  her  friends 
in  Vienna,  that  from  the  heart  of  Austria  she  might  plan  for  the  recovery  of 
the  throne.  The  king  so  far  fell  in  with  this  plan  as  to  write  a  letter  which 
M.  Goguelat  was  to  take  to  the  emperor.  During  the  whole  day  the  garden 
and  court-yard  of  the  Tuileries  were  thronged,  and  the  rejoicing  shouts  of 
the  people  filled  the  air.  The  ignorant  populace,  believing  that  the  king 
and  the  queen  shared  their  joy,  called  loudly  for  them  to  take  an  airing  in 
their  carriage  in  the  Elysian  Fields.  It  was  not  deemed  prudent  to  decline. 
With  heavy  hearts  they  entered  their  carriage,  and  rode  slowly  along  the 
magnificent  avenue,  escorted  by  the  officers  of  the  Parisian  army.  Here  a 
new  insult  awaited  them.  Though  they  were  repeatedly  greeted  with  shouts 
of  "  Vive  le  RoiT  a  gigantic  man,  with  stentorian  voice,  kept  near  the  carriage 
window,  ever  interrupting  those  shouts  with  the  cry,  '■'•No,  donH  believe  them. 
Vive  la  Nation  P  This  one  ill-omened  voice,  incessantly  reiterated,  sank  deep 
into  their  hearts,  and  obliterated  all  impressions  of  public  acclaim.  In  the 
deepest  dejection  they  returned  to  the  palace.* 

That  night  Paris  blazed  with  illuminations,  and  the  shouts  of  joyful  rev- 
elry filled  all  the  streets ;  but  in  these  resounding  plaudits  the  queen  heard 
but  the  death-knell  of  the  monarchy,  and,  in  the  retirement  of  her  boudoir, 
she  was  at  midnight  planning  her  escape  from  France. 

It  was  deemed  by  the  king  and  queen  of  the  utmost  importance  to  assume 
publicly  the  appearance  of  content.  A  few  evenings  after  this,  the  royal 
family  attended  the  Theatre  Italien.  As  Madame  Duguzon  sang  the  words, 
^^Ahf  how  I  love  my  mistress,^''  she  turned  to  the  royal  box,  and  gracefuUy 
courtesied  to  the  queen.  Immediately  many  Jacobins  in  the  pit  shouted, 
"No  mistress!  no  master!  liberty!"  This  caused  others  to  shout,  "Long 
live  the  king!  long  live  the  queen!"  StiU  more  energetically  the  Jacobins 
repHed,  "  No  king!  no  queen!"  In  an  instant  the  theatre  was  thrown  into 
a  Babel  of  tumult.  The  infuriated  antagonists  from  words  proceeded  to 
blows,  and  a  fierce  fight  took  place  under  the  eyes  of  the  royal  family.  News 
of  the  affray  spread  rapidly  through  Paris,  and  the  excitable  mob  was  rapid- 
ly gathering,  when  the  royal  guards  surrounded  the  king  and  queen  and  bore 
them  safely  to  the  palace.  This  was  the  last  time  the  royal  family  ventured 
into  the  theatre.f 

The  queen  was  all  this  time  carrying  on  a  private  correspondence  with  the 
foreign  powers  in  cipher,  and  through  her  agents  was  conferring  with  Wil- 
liam Pitt  in  London.     "  The  queen  told  me,  "  writes  Madam  Campan,  "  that 

*  "What  King  Louis  is,  and  can  not  help  being,  readers  already  know.  A  king  who  can  not 
take  the  Constitution,  nor  reject  the  Constitution,  nor  do  any  thing  at  all  but  miserably  ask, 
'What  shall  I  do?'  " — Carlyle,  History  of  the  French  Revolution,  vol.  ii.,  p.  22. 

t  The  king's  government  hired  hand-clappers  and  applauders.  Fifty  thousand  dollars  a 
month  were  devoted  to  paragraph-writers  and  journalists.  Two  hundred  and  eighty  applauders 
were  hired  at  three  shillings  each  a  day  to  clap  and  shout  whenever  the  king  made  his  appear- 
ance, and  to  crowd  the  galleries  of  the  Legislative  Assembly  whenever  the  king  presented  him- 
self there.     The  accoimt-books  of  this  expenditure  still  exist. — Montgaillard,  vol.  iii.,  p.  141. 


240  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXIY. 

her  secret  envoy  was  returned  from  London,  and  that  all  he  had  been  able 
to  wring  from  Pitt,  whom  he  found  alarmingly  reserved,  was,  that  he  icould 
not  suffer  tlie  French  monarchy  to  fall;  that  to  sufifer  the  revolutionary  spirit 
to  erect  an  organized  republic  in  France  would  be  a  great  error  as  regarding 
the  tranquilHty  of  Europe."* 

The  queen  complained  that  she  herself  was  greatly  embarrassed  by  the 
arrogance  of  the  nobles.  "  When  I  do  any  thing,"  she  said  to  Madame 
Campan,  "  which  the  noblesse  do  not  like,  I  am  treated  with  marked  neglect. 
No  one  will  come  to  my  card-parties,  and  the  king  is  left  in  solitudc."f 

The  Royalists,  indeed,  seem  to  have  been  abandoned  to  utter  infatuation. 
They  did  every  thing  in  their  power  to  insult  and  exasperate  those  who 
were  not  their  poUtical  confederates.  The  Duke  of  Orleans  went  to  the 
Tuileries  to  attend  the  king's  levee.  The  courtiers  who  thronged  the  ante- 
rooms, as  soon  as  he  entered,  crowded  around  him,  hustled  him  about,  trod 
on  his  toes,  and  jDunched  him  with  their  elbows.  "  Gentlemen,"  they  shout- 
ed to  each  other,  "watch  the  dishes!"  implying  that  the  duke  was  provided 
with  poison  to  sprinkle  upon  the  refreshments.  The  duke  was  at  last  com- 
pelled to  retire  without  seeing  the  royal  family.  The  crowd  followed  him 
to  the  staircase,  and,  as  he  descended,  spit  upon  him,  covering  his  head  and 
clothes  with  saliva.  The  duke  supposed,  though  erroneously,  that  the  king 
and  queen  instigated  this  unpardonable  outrage.  It  is  not  strange  that  this 
man,  when  his  hour  of  power  came,  voted  to  send  the  king  to  the  guillotine.:}: 

The  queen  was  unrelenting  in  her  hostility  to  La  Fayette,  and  often  treated 
him  with  the  most  irritating  rudeness.  "  Iler  aversion,"  says  Madame  Cam- 
pan,  "  for  the  general  increased  daily,  and  grew  so  powerful  that  when,  to- 
ward the  end  of  the  Revolution,  he  seemed  willing  to  support  the  tottering 
throne  she  could  never  bring  herself  to  incur  so  great  an  obligation  to  hun.§ 
On  one  occasion  La  Fayette  met  the  queen  in  a  private  interview,  while  his 
aids  waited  for  him  in  the  saloon.  Some  of  the  ladies  of  the  court,  to  insult 
La  Fayette  and  his  aids,  said  loudly,  '■'■  It  is  very  alarming  to  see  the  queen 
alone  loith  a  rebel  and  a  brigand^ 

The  feelings  of  the  king  were  now  so  outraged  that  he  could  not  cheer- 
fully persevere  in  his  resolves  to  maintain  the  new  order  of  affairs.  The  al- 
lied sovereigns  were,  however,  so  embarrassed  by  the  acceptance  of  the  Con- 
stitution by  the  king,  and  by  the  reiterated  declaration  of  the  king  that  he 
accepted  and  adopted  the  whole  system  of  governmental  reform,  that  they 
hesitated  for  a  time  to  carry  into  execution  the  declaration  of  Pilnitz.  Louis 
XVI.  notified  all  the  courts  of  Europe  of  the  change  which  had  been  intro- 
duced into  the  government  of  France,  and  sent  to  them  all,  with  much  cere- 
monial pomp,  a  copy  of  the  Constitution  elegantly  engrossed  upon  satin  pa- 
per. The  allies  could  no  longer  pretend  that  they  were  \vaging  war  against 
a  revolted  people.  It  was  now  necessary,  if  they  continued  hostile,  to  assail 
the  legitimate  king,  and  to  deny,  in  the  face  of  the  world,  that  the  govern- 
ment of  France  had  any  right  to  mitigate  the  severity  of  its  despotism. 

The  courts  of  P'uropc  were  quite  bewildered  by  the  new  aspect  which  af 

♦  Madame  Cnmpnn,  vol.  ii.,  p.  189.  f  Id.,  174. 

t  niTtraml  M.-lcville,  vol.  i.,  p.  177.  Bertrtind  was  nn  ryo-witncs.s  of  this  scene,  whicii  ho 
BraphicuUy  describes.  §  Madame  Campan,  vol.  ii.,  p.  127. 


1791.]  THE  APPKOACH  OF  WAR.  241 

fairs  thus  assumed.  It  was  necessary  for  them  to  take  some  notice  of  the 
courteous  communication  which  had  been  transmitted  to  them,  Leopold  of 
Austria  seemed  disposed  to  give  up  the  conflict,  thinking  that  the  safety  of  . 
his  sister  Marie  Antoinette  would  be  promoted  by  peace.  He  therefore  re- 
turned a  pacific  answer.  Prussia  and  England  sent  back  courteous  replies 
with  assurances  of  their  amicable  intentions.  Holland,  the  Italian  principal- 
ities, and  Switzerland  assumed  a  friendly  attitude.  Eussia  was  cold,  haughty, 
and  reserved.  Gustavus  of  Sweden  returned  the  insulting  reply  that  the 
King  of  France  was  a  prisoner,  and  that  his  assent  to  the  Constitution  was 
obtained  upon  compulsion,  and  therefore  deserved  no  respect  from  the  for- 
eign powers.*  The  Electors  of  Treves  and  of  Mentz,  in  whose  territories 
the  emigrants  had  mostly  taken  refuge,  returned  evasive  and  unsatisfactory 
replies.  Spain,  also,  while  declaring  that  she  had  no  wish  to  disturb  the  in- 
ternal tranquillity  of  France,  could  not  conceal  her  displeasure  that  free  in- 
stitutions were  established  so  near  her  borders,  # 

The  emigrants,  however,  were  still  rallying  at  Coblentz  and  making  for- 
midable preparations  for  war.  The  king  was  vacillating.  It  is  certain  that 
he  sent,  apparently,  the  most  sincere  injunctions  to  the  emigrants  at  Coblentz 
to  disband  and  to  return  to  France,  accepting  the  new  order  of  things.  It 
is  equally  certain  that  he  kept  up  a  private  correspondence  with  the  emi- 
grants, encouraging  them  to  persevere  and  to  march  to  his  rescue.f 

This  hostile  gathering  at  Coblentz,  ever  threatening  the  kingdom  with  in- 
vasion, kept  France  in  a  continual  state  of  ferment.  The  Minister  of  War 
reported  to  the  Assembly  that  nineteen  hundred  of  the  officers  of  the  army 
had  deserted  their  posts  and  joined  the  menacing  foe.  After  a  long  and 
very  anxious  debate,  a  decree  was  passed  declaring  that  the  French  emi- 
grants assembled  at  Coblentz  were  believed  to  be  conspiring  against 
France ;  that  if,  on  the  1st  of  January  next,  they  still  continued  assembled, 
they  should  be  declared  guilty  of  conspiracy,  prosecuted  as  such,  and  pun- 
ished with  death ;  and  that  the  revenues  of  those  who  refused  to  comply 
with  this  decree  should  be  levied,  during  their  lives,  for  the  benefit  of  the 
nation,  without  prejudice  to  the  rights  of  wives,  children,  and  lawful  credit- 
ors.:!: 

The  king,  on  the  10th  of  November,  returned  this  law  with  his  veto.  It 
was  an  imposing  scene.  All  the  ministers  of  the  king,  in  a  body,  went  to  the 
Assembly.  It  was  generally  understood  that  the  power  of  the  veto  was  to 
be  exercised.  Breathless  silence  pervaded  the  Assembly,  The  bill  was  re- 
turned to  the  president  with  the  ofiicial  formula,  "  Tlie  king  ivill  examine  it.'' 
Loud  murmurs  immediately  rose  from  all  parts  of  the  house,  and  the  minis- 
ters retired,  leaving  the  Assembly  in  deep  irritation.  The  conviction  was 
strengthened  that  the  king  was  in  sympathy  with  the  conspirators. 

To  efface  this  impression  the  king  the  next  day  issued  a  proclamation  to 
the  emigrants  exhorting  them  to  cease  to  harass  France  by  their  threatening 

*  The  Empress  Catharine  of  Russia  wrote  to  Marie  Antoinette  a  letter  with  her  own  hand, 
containing  the  following  sentence  :  "Kings  ought  to  proceed  in  their  career,  undisturbed  by  the 
cries  of  the  people,  as  the  moon  pursues  her  course  unimpeded  by  the  howling  of  dogs." — Madame 
Campan,  vol.  i.,  p.  207. 

t  Memoires  de  Madame  Campan.  t.  ii.,  p.  172.  |  Thiers,  vol.  i.,  p.  204. 

Q 


242  TUE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ClIAl'.  XXiV. 

attitude,  and  like  good  citizens  to  return  and  respect  the  established  laws  of 
their  country.  lie  entreated  them  not  to  compel  him  to  employ  severe 
measures  against  them.  As  to  the  charge  that  he  was  deprived  of  his  lib- 
erty, he  said  that  the  veto  which  he  had  just  interposed  in  their  favor  was 
sufficient  proof  of  the  freedom  of  his  actions.  At  the  same  time  he  pub- 
lished two  very  decisive  letters  to  his  two  brothers.  To  Louis  he  wrote  as 
follows : 

"Paris,  November  11,  1791. 

"  To  Louis  Stanislas  Xavier,  French  Prince,  the  King's  Broth- 
er^— I  wrote  to  you,  my  brother,  on  the  16th  of  October  last,  and  you  ought 
not  to  have  had  any  doubt  of  my  real  sentiments.  I  am  surprised  that  my 
letter  has  not  produced  the  effect  which  I  had  a  right  to  expect  from  it.  In 
order  to  recall  you  to  your  duty  I  have  used  all  the  arguments  that  ought 
to  touch  you  most.  Your  absence  is  a  pretext  for  all  the  evil  disposed ;  a 
sort  of  excuse  for  all  the  deluded  French,  who  imagine  that  they  are  serv- 
ing me  by  keeping  all  France  in  an  alarm  and  agitation,  which  are  the  tor- 
ment of  my  life. 

"The  Revolution  is  finished.  The  Constitution  is  completed.  France 
wills  it ;  I  will  maintain  it.  Upon  its  consolidation  now  depends  the  wel- 
fare of  the  monarchy.  The  Constitution  has  conferred  rights  upon  you  ;  it 
has  attached  to  them  one  condition  which  you  ought  to  lose  no  time  in  ful- 
filling. Believe  me,  brother,  and  repel  the  doubts  which  pains  are  taken  to 
excite  in  you  respecting  my  liberty.  I  am  going  to  prove  to  you,  by  a  most 
solemn  act,  and  in  a  circumstance  which  interests  you,  that  I  can  act  freely. 
Prove  to  me  that  you  are  my  brother  and  a  Frenchman  b}'-  complying  with 
my  entreaties.  Your  proper  place  is  by  my  side ;  your  interests,  your  sen- 
timents alike  urge  you  to  come  and  resume  it.  I  invite  you,  and,  if  I  may, 
I  order  you  to  do  so.  (Signed),  Louis." 

In  a  similar  strain  he  wrote  to  his  brother  Charles.  But  neither  the  proc- 
lamation to  the  emigrants  nor  the  letters  to  his  brothers  produced  any  clloct. 
The  Count  of  Provence  (Louis  XVIIL),  in  his  reply,  said, 

"  The  order  which  the  letter  contains  for  me  to  return  and  resume  my 
place  by  your  majesty's  person  is  not  the  free  expression  of  your  will.  My 
honor,  my  duty,  nay,  even  my  affection  alike  forbid  me  to  obey." 

The  Count  of  Artois  (Charles  X.)  replied, 

"  The  decisions  referred  to  in  this  letter  have  furnished  me  with  a  fresh 
proof  of  the  moral  and  physical  captivity  in  which  our  enemies  dare  to  hold 
your  majesty.  After  this  declaration  your  majesty  will  think  it  natural  that, 
faithful  to  my  duty  and  the  laws  of  honor,  I  should  not  obey  orders  evident- 
ly wrung  from  you  by  violence." 

Another  very  serious  difficulty  now  arose.  The  Constitution  established 
freedom  of  conscience  and  of  worship.  It,  however,  justly  required  that  all 
governmental  officers  should  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  Constitution. 
The  Church  had  been  so  long  in  intimate  alliance  with  the  State,  that  that 
alliance  was  not  severed,  and  the  clergy,  as  public  functionaries  who  re- 
ceived their  salaries  from  the  national  treasury,  were  consequently  required 
to  take  the  oath.     Any  one  was  at  liberty  to  refuse  to  take  this  oath.     By 


1791.]  THE  APPROACH  OF  WAR.  243 

SO  doing  he  merely  forfeited  employment  by  the  nation.  He  was  still  per- 
mitted to  perform  the  functions  of  the  ministry  for  any  who  were  disposed 
to  support  him  as  their  pastor. 

In  the  Province  of  Vendee  the  majority  of  the  clergy  refused  to  take  the 
oath,  and  carried  with  them  the  immense  majority  of  the  simple  and  super- 
stitious peasants.  The  churches  in  which  they  had  ministered  were  imme- 
diately assigned  to  other  priests  who  had  taken  the  oath.  The  great  mass 
of  the  people  abandoned  the  churches  and  followed  their  nonjuring  pastors 
to  private  houses,  barns,  and  into  the  fields.  Great  enthusiasm  was  excited, 
and  the  nonjuring  priests  endeavored  to  excite  the  people  against  their  col- 
leagues who  had  taken  the  oath,  and  against  the  people  who  accepted  their 
ministrations.     Acts  of  violence  were  frequent  and  civil  war  was  imminent. 

The  Legislative  Assembly  was  alarmed,  and  endeavored  to  meet  the  dif- 
ficulty by  adopting  measures  totally  hostile  to  the  free  spirit  of  the  Constitu- 
tion. They  resolved  that  the  nonjuring  priests  should  again  be  called  upon 
to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  Constitution ;  that,  if  they  refused,  they 
should  be  not  only  deprived  of  all  salary,  but  should  be  removed  from  their 
jDarishes,  and  even  imprisoned,  if  need  be,  that  they  might  not  excite  their 
former  parishioners  to  civil  war.  They  were  also  forbidden  to  exercise  the 
privilege  of  private  worship.  The  administrative  bodies  were  required  to 
transmit  a  list  of  such  priests  to  the  Assembly,  with  notes  relative  to  the  con- 
duct of  each  one. 

These  decrees  were  surely  unconstitutional.  The  bishops  and  the  priests 
who  were  endangered  by  them  sent  to  the  king  an  earnest  remonstrance 
against  them.  Many  of  the  most  influential  of  the  Constitutionalists  were 
opposed  to  them  as  both  tyrannical  and  cruel.  The  king  was  so  moved  that 
he  said  to  his  ministers,  who  coincided  with  him  in  opinion,  "  They  shall  take 
my  life  before  they  shall  compel  me  to  sanction  such  decrees." 

The  king  returned  the  bill  with  his  veto,  and  aggravated  the  odium  this 
would  naturally  excite  by  retaining,  contrary  to  the  solicitations  of  his  best 
friends,  nonjuring  ecclesiastics  to  perform  the  religious  services  of  his  chapel. 
Though  we  can  not  commend  the  j^rudeyice  we  must  respect  the  sjnrit  which 
impelled  him  to  say, 

"  The  Constitution  decrees  freedom  of  religious  worship  for  every  body. 
The  king  is  surely  entitled  to  that  liberty  as  much  as  his  subjects." 

All  argument  was  on  one  side,  but  peril,  more  powerful  than  argument,  on 
the  other.  "The  nonjuring  priests,"  it  was  exclaimed,  "are  exciting  civil 
war.  The  law  of  self-defense  renders  it  imperative  that  we  should  strike 
them  down." 

Upon  the  completion  of  the  Constitution,  La  Fayette,  emulating  the  char- 
acter of  Washington,  resigned  the  command  of  the  National  Guard  and  re- 
tired to  his  estates.  Bailly  also  resigned  his  post  as  mayor  of  Paris.  The 
command  of  the  Guard  was  intrusted  to  six  generals,  who  were  to  exercise 
it  in  rotation.  A  new  mayor  of  Paris  was  to  be  chosen.  La  Fayette  was 
the  candidate  of  the  Constitutionalists,  and  Petion  of  that  radical  portion  of 
the  Eepublicans  who  were  termed  Jacobins.  The  aristocracy,  with  their  ac- 
customed infatuation,  supported  Petion  with  their  influence  and  with  a  large 
outlay  of  money.     They  feared  that  a  constitutional  monarchy  might  be 


244  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP,  XXIY. 

sustained,  but  they  believed  that  the  Jacobins  would  introduce  such  anarchy 
as  might  secure  the  recall  of  the  old  monarchy. 

"The  Marquis  de  la  Fayette,"  said  the  queen,  "only  desires  to  be  Mayor 
of  Paris  that  he  may  be  mayor  of  the  palace.  Potion  is  a  Jacobin  and  a  Re- 
publican ;  but  he  is  a  fool,  incapable  of  ever  being  the  leader  of  a  party. 
He  will  be  a  nullity  of  a  mayor.  Besides,  it  is  possible  that  the  knowledge 
of  the  interest  we  take  in  his  election  may  bring  him  over  to  the  king."* 

Potion  was  chosen  by  a  large  majority.  Bitterly  did  the  king  and  queen 
afterward  bewail  his  election.  But  thus  through  all  this  tragedy  did  they 
spurn  those  who  alone  had  the  heart  and  the  ability  to  help  them. 

In  the  midst  of  these  troubles  the  most  alarming  rumors  were  every  day 
reaching  Paris  respecting  the  threatening  aspect  of  the  emigrants.  All  along 
the  Germanic  frontiers,  at  Strasbourg,  Coblentz,  Worms,  they  were  marshal- 
ing their  battalions  and  collecting  munitions  of  war.  Exasperated  by  these 
persistent  and  audacious  threats,  the  Assembly  sent  a  deputation  of  twenty- 
four  members  to  the  king  with  a  decree  declaring  that  the  Electors  of  Treves 
and  Mentz,  and  other  princes  of  the  Germanic  empire  should  be  required  to 
break  up  these  hostile  assemblages  formed  within  their  territories  for  the 
invasion  of  France.  M.  de  Yaublanc,  who  headed  the  deputation,  said  to 
the  king, 

"  Sire,  if  the  French  who  were  driven  from  their  country  by  the  revoca- 
tion of  the  Edict  of  Kantes  had  assembled  in  arms  on  the  frontiers,  and  had 
been  protected  by  Germanic  princes,  we  ask  you,  sire,  what  would  have 
been  the  conduct  of  Louis  XIV.  ?  "Would  he  have  suffered  these  assem- 
blages ?  That  which  he  would  have  done  for  the  sake  of  his  authority,  your 
majesty  can  not  hesitate  to  do  for  the  maintenance  of  the  Constitution." 

The  king,  anxious  to  regain  the  ground  he  had  lost  by  his  veto^  decided  to 
go  to  the  Assembly  and  reply  in  person  to  their  message.  On  the  evening 
of  the  14th  of  December,  his  coming  having  been  previously  announced,  he 
entered  the  hall.  He  was  received  with  the  most  frigid  silence.  His  speech, 
however,  soon  enkindled  enthusiasm  and  applause. 

He  assured  the  Assembly  that  he  warmly  sympathized  with  them  in  all 
their  solicitude  for  the  honor  of  France,  that  he  had  already  signified  to  the 
Electors  of  Treves  and  Mentz  that  the  continued  assemblage  of  troops  within 
their  borders  for  the  invasion  of  France  would  be  deemed  cause  for  war. 
lie  said  that  he  had  written  to  Leopold,  the  Emperor  of  Germany,  demand- 
ing his  interference  to  prevent  the  gathering  of  troops,  hostile  to  France, 
within  the  limits  of  the  Germanic  empire,  and  concluded  with  the  declara- 
tion that  he  would  faithfully  guard  the  Constitution,  and  that  he  appreciated 
the  glory  of  being  the  king  of  a  free  people.f 

This  speech  was  received  with  great  applause,  and  it  was  immediately 
voted  that  it  sliould  be  sent  to  each  of  the  eighty-three  departments  of  the 
empire.    Immediately  upon  the  king's  retiring,  the  Count  Louis  de  Narbonne, 

*  Bcrtrnnd'8  rrivntc  McmoirH,  vol.  v.,  p.  lOG. 

t  There  wna  nn  earnest  dobnto  in  February,  1800,  in  tlie  British  House  of  Commons  as  to  who 
were  the  ap^ressors  in  this  war.  Mr.  Pitt  denouneed  the  French  as  the  apgressors.  Mr.  Fox, 
on  the  contrary,  afrirmed  that  the  war  was  unavoidable  on  the  part  of  France  from  the  mcnaciiip 
conduct  of  the  German  i>owers. 


1791.]  THE  APPROACH  OF  WAK.  245 

minister  of  war,  entered,  and  informed  tlie  Assembly  that  one  hundred  thou- 
sand men  were  immediately  to  be  assembled,  by  order  of  the  king,  upon  the 
Ehine,  to  repel  invasion ;  that  three  generals  were  appointed  to  command 
them — Luckner,  Eochambeau,  and  La  Fayette ;  that  he  was  about  to  set  out 
immediately  to  inspect  the  fortresses  on  the  frontiers.  At  the  same  time  all 
the  diplomatic  agents  who  were  accused  of  favoring  the  aristocratic  party 
were  removed,  and  more  democratic  officers  were  appointed  in  their  place. 
These  measures  were  so  popular,  and  gave  such  evidence  that  the  king  sin- 
cerely intended  to  defend  the  Constitution,  that  even  the  obnoxious  vetos 
were  accepted  without  farther  murmurs. 

These  measures  were  prosecuted  with  vigor.  Luckner  and  Eochambeau, 
having  been  appointed  marshals  of  France,  hastened  to  the  frontiers.  La 
Fayette  soon  followed  them.  Battalions  of  the  National  Guard  escorted  him 
as  he  left  Paris,  and  he  was  greeted  every  where  with  shouts  of  applause. 

The  emigrants  were  unanimous  in  their  desire  for  the  invasion  of  France, 
for  the  entire  overthrow  of  the  Constitution,  and  the  restoration  of  the  Old 
Eegime.  Leopold  of  Austria,  however,  anxious  for  the  safety  of  his  sister 
Marie  Antoinette,  and  embarrassed  by  the  king's  acceptance  of  the  Consti- 
tution, was  desirous  of  effecting  some  compromise  by  which  a  constitution 
should  be  permitted  to  France,  but  one  much  more  aristocratic  in  its  provi- 
sions. Gustavus  of  Sweden  and  Catherine  of  Eussia  were  eager  for  prompt 
and  energetic  war.  Catherine  wrote  a  strong  letter  to  Leopold  to  rouse  him 
to  action. 

"  The  King  of  Prussia,"  she  wrote,  "for  a  mere  incivility  offered  to  his  sis- 
ter, sent  an  army  into  Holland  to  punish  the  affront.  And  will  the  Empe- 
ror of  Austria  patiently  suffer  insults  and  affronts  to  be  heaped  upon  his  sis- 
ter, the  Queen  of  France,  the  degradation  of  her  rank  and  dignity,  and  the 
overthrow  of  the  throne  of  a  king  who  is  his  brother-in-law  and  his  ally?"* 

Under  this  state  of  affairs,  the  French  embassador,  in  January,  1792,  was 
instructed  to  inform  the  Austrian  government  that  there  was  reason  to  ap- 
prehend that  a  coalition  was  being  formed  against  the  sovereignty  and  in- 
dependence of  France,  and  to  inquire  of  Leopold  whether  he  did  or  did  not 
intend  to  interfere  against  the  French  Eevolution.  Thus  pressed,  the  Aus- 
trian cabinet  returned  an  answer  containing  the  following  avowal : 

"  When  France  gave  to  Europe  the  spectacle  of  a  lawful  king  forced  by 
atrocious  violence  to  fly,  protesting  solemnly  against  the  acquiescence  which 
they  had  extorted  from  him,  and  a  little  afterward  stopped  and  detained 
prisoner  by  his  subjects — yes,  it  then  did  concern  the  brother-in-law  and  the 
ally  of  the  king  to  invite  the  other  powers  of  Europe  to  join  with  him  in  a 
declaration  to  France  that  they  all  view  the  cause  of  his  most  Christian  maj- 
esty as  their  own ;  that  they  demand  that  this  prince  and  his  family  be  set 
at  liberty  and  have  power  to  go  where  they  please ;  and  they  require  for 
these  royal  personages  inviolability  and  due  respect,  which  by  the  law  of 
nature  and  nations  are  due  from  subjects  to  their  princes;  that  they  will 
unite  to  avenge  in  the  most  signal  manner  every  farther  attempt  that  may 
be  committed,  or  may  be  suffered  to  be  committed,  against  the  liberty,  the 
honor,  and  the  safety  of  the  king,  the  queen,  and  the  royal  family ;  and  that, 

*  Memoires  de  Bouille,  p.  314. 


246  '^'ii^  FliENCU  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXY. 

finally,  they  will  not  acknowledge  as  constitutional  and  legally  established 
in  France  any  laws  but  those  which  shall  have  the  voluntary  acquiescence 
of  the  king,  enjoying  perfect  liberty.  But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  these  de- 
mands arc  not  complied  with,  they  will  in  concert  employ  all  the  means  in 
their  reach  to  put  a  stop  to  the  scandalous  usurpation  of  power  which  bears 
the  appearance  of  an  open  rebellion,  and  which,  from  the  dangers  of  the  ex- 
ample, it  concerns  all  the  governments  of  Europe  to  repress." 

The  Eepublican  party  in  the  Legislative  Assembly  were  called  the  Gi- 
rondists because  their  leaders  were  generally  from  the  department  of  the 
Gironde.  The  evidence  to  them  was  conclusive,  and  is  now  universally  ad- 
mitted, that  the  king,  instead  of  sustaining  the  Constitution,  was  conspiring 
with  the  emigrants  and  the  foreign  powers  for  its  overthrow.  The  Giron- 
dists, thus  assured  that  the  king  was  hostile  to  constitutional  liberty  while 
pretending  that  he  was  its  friend  that  he  might  more  effectually  assail  it, 
were  anxious  for  his  dethronement  and  for  the  establishment  of  a  republic. 
Candor  surely  can  not  censure  them.  Twenty -five  millions  of  men  were  not 
bound  to  place  their  liberties  in  the  hands  of  a  monarch  who  was  conspiring 
with  foreign  foes  to  enslave  them  anew. 

The  Republican  party  increased  so  rapidly  and  swayed  such  an  influence 
that  the  king  was  compelled  early  in  1792  to  dismiss  his  Eoyalist  ministers, 
and  to  call  into  his  cabinet  the  leaders  of  the  Republicans,  Dumouriez,  Ro- 
land, and  others.  He  was  compelled  very  reluctantly  to  take  this  step, 
and  soon  by  them  he  was  compelled,  with  still  greater  reluctance,  to  declare 
war  against  Austria. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

AGITATION  IN  PARIS,  AND  COMMENCEMENT  OF  HOSTILITIES. 

Death  of  Leopold. — Assassination  of  Gustavus. — Interview  between  Dumouriez  and  the  Queen. 
— DLscussion  in  the  Assembly. — The  Duke  of  Brunswick. — Interview  of  Barnave  with  the 
Queen. — Interview  between  Dumouriez  and  the  King. — Dismissal  of  M.  Roland. — The  Palace 
invaded. — Fortitude  of  the  King. — Petion,  the  Mayor. — Afl'ectiug  Intcr\-iew  of  the  Royal  Fam- 
ily.— Remarks  of  Napoleon. 

On  the  1st  of  March,  1792,  the  Emperor  Leopold  died.  His  son,  Francis 
II.,  a  young  man  twenty-four  years  of  age,  ascended  the  throne.  The  court 
of  Leopold  had  been  a  harem  of  unblushing  sensuality  and  sin.  He  did  not 
condescend  to  spread  any  veil  over  his  amours.  His  attachments  were  nu- 
merous and  fugitive,  and  his  guilty  favorites  associated  with  each  other  and 
braved  the  frowns  of  the  humiliated  queen  amid  the  voluptuousness  of  the 
palace.  At  the  time  of  his  death  there  dwelt  with  him  Donna  ^NLaria,  a 
young  girl  from  Tuscany,  whose  surpassing  charms  had  given  her  celebrity 
throughout  Euro])e  as  "  the  beautiful  Florentine;"  a  Polish  girl  of  great  at- 
tractions. Mademoiselle  Prokache ;  and  the  Countess  of  Walkenstcin,  whose 
charms  of  person  and  fascination  of  manners  gave  her  celebrity  through  all 
the  European  courts.  Upon  this  latter  favorite  alone  he  lavished  gifts,  in 
drafts  on  the  Bank  of  Vienna,  to  the  amount  of  two  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars.    There  were  uko  various  other  of  these  favorites  of  infiuny,  inferior  in 


1792.]  COMMENCEMENT  OF  HOSTILITIES.  247 

notoriety  and  rank.  The  annals  of  Eoman  story  may  be  searclied  in  vain 
to  find  a  monarcli  more  utterly  profligate.  Immediately  after  Lis  death  his 
widow  said  to  her  son  Francis, 

"  My  son,  you  have  before  you  the  sad  proofs  of  your  father's  disorderly 
life  and  of  my  long  afflictions.  Eemember  nothing  of  them  except  my  for- 
giveness and  his  virtues.  Imitate  his  great  qualities,  but  beware  lest  you 
fall  into  the  same  vices,  in  order  that  you  may  not,  in  your  turn,  put  to  the 
blush  those  who  scrutinize  your  life." 

Marie  Antoinette  doubted  not  that  her  cousin  Francis  would  be  as  devot- 
ed to  her  interests  as  her  brother  Leopold  had  been.  Fifteen  days  after  the 
death  of  Leopold,  Gustavus  III.  of  Sweden  was  assassinated  at  a  masked  ball 
by  the  nobles  of  his  court.  His  death  momentarily  embarrassed  the  move- 
ments of  the  emigrants,  for  he  was  actively  engaged  in  raising  an  army  for 
the  invasion  of  France.* 

The  allies  were  now  vigorously  raising  troops  and  directing  their  march 
towards  the  frontiers  of  France.  Some  hoped  that  the  demonstration  would 
overawe  the  French  and  frighten  them  into  submission.  Others  were  eager, 
by  prompt  invasion,  to  submit  the  question  to  the  arbitrament  of  battle. 
The  Assembly  speedily  dispatched  to  the  threatened  frontier  three  armies 
of  defense.  Eochambeau  was  placed  in  command  of  the  army  of  the  north, 
at  Flanders,  consisting  of  63,000  men ;  La  Fayette  was  sent  to  the  army  of 
the  centre,  at  Metz,  which  was  52,000  strong ;  Luckner  occupied  Alsace, 
with  48,000  troops.f 

In  calling  the  Girondists  into  the  ministry.  General  Dumouriez,  a  brave 
and  veteran  soldier,  was  appointed  to  the  ministry  of  foreign  affairs.  With 
great  vigor  he  prosecuted  arrangements  for  the  defense  of  France.  In  addi- 
tion to  the  troops,  amounting  to  163,000,  stationed  along  the  northwestern 
frontier  from  Dunkirk  to  BesauQon,  he  raised  a  fourth  army  to  repel  inva- 
sion from  Spain  through  the  passes  of  the  Pyrenees. 

Dumouriez  had  acquired  great  popularity  in  the  club  of  the  Jacobins  by 
frequenting  their  meetings,  and  by  wearing  the  red  cap  of  liberty,  an  em- 
blem borrowed  from  the  Phrygians.  The  queen  was  highly  indignant  that 
one  in  sympathy  with  the  Jacobins  should  be  called  into  the  ministry,  and, 
as  she  was  now  heartily  in  sympathy  with  the  emigrants  and  the  allies,  she 
was  provoked  by  the  vigorous  measures  adopted  to  repel  them.  Dumouriez 
was  a  soldier,  not  a  statesman ;  a  man  of  heroic  character,  brave,  impulsive, 
and  generous.  He  had  great  power  over  the  mind  of  the  king ;  and  the 
queen,  anxious  to  see  him,  appointed  an  audience.  In  the  memoirs  of  Du- 
mouriez we  find  a  narrative  of  this  interview.  Upon  being  ushered  into  her 
apartment,  he  found  the  queen,  with  flushed  cheeks,  rapidly  pacing  the  floor, 

*  At  the  moment  of  Leopold's  death  all  was  ready  for  hostilities.  Two  himdred  thousand 
men  were  under  arms  for  the  invasion.  The  Duke  of  Brunswick,  who  was  placed  in  command, 
was  at  Berlin  receiving  the  final  commands  of  the  king.  Another  Prussian  general  was  at  Vi- 
enna receiving  from  Leopold  advice  as  to  the  time  and  point  of  attack.  Leopold,  whose  consti- 
tution was  shattered  by  debauchery,  was  taken  suddenly  sick,  and,  after  two  days  of  excruciating 
pain,  died  in  convulsions.  His  death  was  probably  caused  by  an  immoderate  use  of  drags  to  re- 
cruit his  system,  enervated  by  dissipation.  This  event  for  a  short  time  paralyzed  the  energies 
of  the  coalition.     See  History  of  the  Girondists,  by  Lamartine,  vol.  !.,  p.  364. 

t  Memoirs  of  Count  Mathieu  Dumas,  vol.  i.,  p.  190. 


248  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.         [ChAP.  XXV. 

and  giving  every  indication  of  extreme  excitement.  Dumouriez,  embarrassed 
by  this  a.spect  of  affairs,  advanced  in  silence  to  a  corner  of  the  fire-place, 
when  the  queen  turned  toward  him  and  abruptly  said,  with  an  air  and  tone 
of  anger, 

*'  Sir,  you  arc  all-powerful  at  this  moment,  but  it  is  through  the  favor  of 
the  people,  who  soon  break  their  idols  in  pieces.  Your  existence  depends 
upon  your  conduct.  It  is  said  that  you  possess  great  abilities.  You  must 
be  aware  that  neither  the  king  nor  myself  can  endure  these  innovations,  nor 
the  Constitution.     This  I  tell  you  frankly.     Choose  your  side." 

"  Madame,"  Dumouriez  replied,  "  I  am  deeply  pained  by  the  secret  which 
your  majesty  has  just  imparted  to  me.  I  will  not  betray  it.  But  I  stand 
between  the  king  and  my  nation,  and  I  belong  to  my  country.  Permit  me 
to  say  that  the  welfare  of  the  king,  your  own,  and  that  of  your  children, 
are  linked  with  the  Constitution.  You  are  surrounded  by  enemies  who  are 
sacrificing  you  to  their  private  interests.  The  Constitution,  when  once  in 
vigor,  so  far  from  bringing  misery  upon  the  king,  will  constitute  his  happi- 
ness and  glory.  It  is  absolutely  necessary  that  he  should  concur  in  estab- 
lishing it  solidly  and  speedily." 

The  queen  could  never  endure  contradiction.  Losing  all  self-control,  she 
exclaimed,  in  a  loud  and  angry  tone,  "  The  Constitution  will  not  last.  Take 
care  of  yourself" 

Dumouriez  quietly  and  firmly  replied,  "  Madame,  I  am  past  fifty ;  my  life 
has  been  crossed  by  many  perils ;  and,  in  accepting  the  ministry,  I  was  thor- 
oughly sensible  that  responsibility  was  not  the  greatest  of  my  dangers." 

The  queen,  in  the  blindness  of  her  passion,  saw  fit  to  interpret  this  remark 
as  an  insinuation  that  she  might  cause  him  to  be  assassinated.  "With  in- 
flamed cheeks  and  tears  gushing  into  her  eyes,  she  replied, 

"  Nothing  more  was  wanting  but  to  calumniate  me.  You  seem  to  think 
me  capable  of  causing  you  to  be  murdered." 

The  scene  had  now  become  painful  in  the  extreme,  and  Dumouriez,  great- 
ly agitated,  answered, 

"  God  preserve  me,  madame,  from  doing  you  so  cruel  an  injury.  The  char- 
acter of  your  majesty  is  great  and  noble.  You  have  given  heroic  proofs  of 
it  which  I  have  admired,  and  which  have  attached  me  to  you.  Believe  me, 
I  have  no  interest  in  deceiving  you,  I  abhor  anarchy  and  crime  as  much 
as  you  do.  But  this  is  not  a  transient  popular  movement,  as  you  seem  to 
think.  It  is  an  almost  unanimous  insurrection  of  a  mighty  nation  against 
inveterate  abuses.  Great  factions  fan  this  flame,  h}  all  of  them  there  are 
villains  and  madmen.  In  the  Revolution  I  keep  in  view  only  the  king  and 
the  entire  nation  ;  all  that  tends  to  part  them  leads  to  their  mutual  ruin.  I 
strive  as  much  as  possible  to  unite  them.  If  I  am  an  obstacle  to  3'our  de- 
signs, tell  me  so.  I  will  instantly  send  my  resignation  to  the  king,  and  hide 
myself  in  some  corner  to  mourn  over  your  fate  and  that  of  my  country."* 

*  Diimonrioz's  Memoirs,  book  iii.,  cli.  vi.  Madnmo  Cnmpnn  pivcs  an  nrcount  of  tliis  interview 
with  a  little  <li(Vetent  ecdorinp;.  "One  tiny,"  she  writes,  "  I  found  the  queen  in  extreme  apitation. 
She  told  me  tlmt  she  knew  not  what  to  do;  that  the  leaders  of  the  Jaeohins  had  oflVred  them- 
selves to  her  tlirouph  Dimiouriez,  or  that  Dumouriez,  forsaking  the  jjurty  of  the  Jaeohins,  had 
eomc  and  offered  himself  to  her;  that  rIio  had  piven  him  an  audienee;  that,  hcinp  alone  with 
her,  he  had  thrown  himself  at  licr  feet,  and  told  her  that  he  had  put  ou  the  red  cap,  and  even 


1792.]  COMMENCEMENT  OF  HOSTILITIES.  249 

This  conversation  restored  Dumoiiriez  to  the  confidence  of  the  queen,  and 
she  conversed  frankly  and  with  a  friendly  spirit  with  him  upon  her  griefs 
and  perils. 

"You  see  me,"  she  said,  "very  sad.  I  dare  not  approach  the  window 
which  looks  into  the  garden.  Yesterday  evening  I  went  to  the  window  to- 
ward the  court  just  to  take  a  little  air.  A  gunner  of  the  guard  addressed 
me  in  terms  of  vulgar  abuse,  adding, '  How  I  should  like  to  see  your  head  on 
the  point  of  my  bayonet !'  In  this  horrid  garden  you  see  on  one  side  a  man, 
mounted  on  a  chair,  reading  aloud  the  most  abominable  calumnies  agamst 
us ;  on  the  other,  a  military  man  or  an  abbe  dragged  through  one  of  the  ba- 
sins, overwhelmed  with  abuse,  and  beaten,  while  others  are  playing  at  ball, 
or  quietly  walking  about.     What  an  abode !  what  a  people !" 

The  Austrian  monarchy,  supported  by  the  other  powers  of  Europe,  now 
sent  to  France  the  insolent  demand  that  the  French  monarchy  should  be  re- 
stored almost  to  its  pristine  despotic  power ;  that  the  three  estates  of  the 
realm — the  clergy,  the  nobles,  and  the  tiers  etat^  should  be  re-established,  and 
that  there  should  be  the  restitution  of  Church  property.  It  is  not  surpris- 
ing that  an  independent  nation  of  twenty -five  millions  should  have  resented 
such  impertinence.  There  was  a  general  cry  of  indignation  from  the  Assem- 
bly, which  was  re-echoed  by  the  people,  and  new  vigor  was  infused  on  both 
sides  into  the  preparations  for  the  war. 

The  king  was  sorely  perplexed.  In  the  event  of  war,  victory  would  but 
strengthen  the  Revolutionary  party ;  defeat  would  expose  him  to  the  charge 
of  treason  in  feebly  conducting  hostilities.  But  France  would  not  yield  to 
this  insulting  foreign  dictation,  and  the  pressure  of  public  opinion  fell  so 
strong  upon  the  king  that  he  was  constrained,  much  against  his  will,  to  issue 
a  declaration  of  war.  Pale  and  care-worn  the  king  entered  the  Assembly, 
and,  after  presenting  through  his  minister  a  report  of  the  demands  of  Aus- 
tria, with  a  faltering  voice  read  his  speech. 

"  Gentlemen,"  said  he,  "  you  have  heard  the  result  of  the  negotiation  in 
which  I  have  been  engaged  with  the  court  of  Vienna.  The  conclusions  of 
the  report  have  been  unanimously  adopted  by  my  council.  I  have  myself 
adopted  them.  All  would  rather  have  war  than  see  the  dignity  of  the 
French  people  any  longer  insulted  and  the  national  security  threatened. 
Having  employed  all  possible  means  to  obtain  peace,  I  come  now,  agreeably 
to  the  terms  of  the  Constitution,  to  propose  to  the  National  Assembly  war 
against  the  King  of  Hungary  and  Bohemia."* 

The  proposal  was  received  with  shouts  of  "Ftye  le  Roi^''''  and  the  decree 
was  passed  by  a  great  majority.f    In  the  debates  which  the  question  of  war 

pulled  it  clown  over  his  ears,  but  that  he  neither  was,  nor  ever  conlcl  be,  a  Jacobin  ;  that  the  Eev- 
olution  had  been  suffered  to  roll  on  to  that  mob  of  disorpanizers,  who,  aspiring  only  to  pillage, 
were  capable  of  every  thing.  "While  speaking  with  extreme  warmth,  he  had  taken  hold  of  the 
queen's  hand  and  kissed  it  with  transport,  saying,  'Allow  yourself  to  be  saved.'  The  queen  told 
me  that  it  was  impossible  to  believe  the  protestations  of  a  traitor ;  that  all  his  conduct  was  so  well 
known  that  the  wisest  plan  was  not  to  trust  in  him,  and,  besides,  the  princes  earnestly  recommend- 
ed that  no  confidence  should  be  placed  in  any  proposal  from  the  interior." — ]\fadame  Carnpan, 
vol.  ii.,  p.  202.  *  Francis  was  not  yet  elected  Emperor  of  Germany. 

t  Condorcet,  in  a  paper  which  he  drew  up  in  exposition  of  the  motives  which  led  to  this  strife, 
says,  "The  veil  which  concealed  the  intentions  of  our  enemy  is  at  length  torn.     Citizens,  which 


250 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


[CuAP.  XXV. 


LOCIS   XVI.    IN    THE  NATIONAL  ABSEMliLY. 


had  excited,  great  eloquence  was  displayed  in  the  Assembly.  M.  Isnard 
spoke  in  terms  of  enthusiasm  which  brought  the  whole  Assembly  to  their 
feet. 

"  Capitulations,"  said  he,  "  are  proposed  to  you.  It  is  proposed  to  increase 
the  power  of  the  king — of  a  man  whose  will  can  paralyze  that  of  a  whole 
nation — of  a  man  who  receives  thirty  millions  ($6,000,000)  while  thousands 
of  citizens  are  perishing  from  want.  It  is  proposed  to  bring  back  the  no- 
bility. Were  all  the  nobles  on  earth  to  attack  us,  the  French,  holding  their 
gold  in  one  hand,  and  their  sword  in  the  other,  would  combat  that  haughty 
race,  and  force  it  to  endure  the  punishment  of  equality. 

"  Tell  Europe  that  you  will  respect  the  Constitutions  of  all  other  countries, 
but  that,  if  a  war  of  kings  is  raised  against  France,  you  will  raise  a  war  of 
people  against  kings.  The  battles  which  nations  fight  at  the  command  of 
despots  arc  like  the  blows  which  two  friends,  excited  by  a  perfidious  insti- 

of  you  coiilil  subscribe  to  these  ipnominious  proposals?  Feudal  scmtudc  and  a  humiliating  in- 
equality; bankruptty  and  taxes  which  you  alone  would  pay;  tithes  and  the  Inquisition;  your 
possessions,  bouRht  ujion  the  public  faith,  restored  to  their  former  usurpers ;  the  beasts  of  the 
chase  re-estalilishcd  in  tlieir  rij;ht  of  ravapinp;  your  fields ;  your  blood  profusely  Rjtilled  for  the 
and)itious  projects  of  a  hostile  house — such  are  the  conditions  of  the  treaty  between  the  Kinp  of 
Hungary  and  i)erfidious  Frenchmen!  Such  is  the  jiencc  which  is  oftered  to  you!  No!  never 
will  you  accept  it !" — Exjmsition  of  the  motives  tchith  ik'lrniiinid  the  Ntitlonnl  Asseitihly  to  dfcrcr,  on 
the  Jorwdl  fiin/ional  of  the  Kimj,  that  there  is  reason  to  ikclurc  uar  a^iiiiist  the  Kiuij  q/'  Iltiiii/arif  ami 
liohcmia,  hi/  J/.  C'uHiIorcct. 


1792.]  COMMENCEMENT  OF  HOSTILITIES.  251 

gator,  strike  at  eacli  other  in  the  dark.  The  moment  a  light  appears  they 
embrace  and  take  vengeance  on  him  who  deluded  them.  In  like  manner, 
if,  at  the  moment  when  the  hostile  armies  shall  be  engaged  with  ours,  the 
light  of  philosophy  bursts  upon  their  sight,  the  nations  will  embrace  each 
other  before  the  face  of  dethroned  tyrants,  of  consoled  earth,  and  of  delight- 
ed heaven."* 

Vergniaud,  the  illustrious  leader  of  the  Gironde,  said  eloquently,  "Our 
resolution  has  spread  alarm  among  all  thrones,  for  it  has  given  an  example 
of  the  destruction  of  the  despotism  which  sustains  them.  Kings  hate  our 
Constitution  because  it  renders  men  free,  and  they  would  reign  over  slaves. 
This  hate  has  been  manifested  on  the  part  of  the  Emperor  of  Germany  by 
all  the  measures  he  has  adopted  to  disturb  us  or  to  strengthen  our  enemies 
and  encourage  those  Frenchmen  who  have  rebelled  against  the  laws  of  their 
country. 

"  Let  us  demand  that  the  emigrants  be  dispersed.  I  might  demand  that 
they  be  given  up  to  the  country  they  insult  and  to  punishment.  But  no. 
If  they  have  been  greedy  for  our  blood,  let  us  not  show  ourselves  greedy 
for  theirs.  Their  crime  is  having  wished  to  destroy  their  country.  Let 
them  be  vagrants  and  wanderers  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  let  their  pun- 
ishment be  never  to  find  a  country." 

The  most  vigorous  preparations  were  now  made  on  both  sides  for  the 
prosecution  of  the  war.  Francis  of  Austria  and  Frederick  of  Prussia  met 
the  Luke  of  Brunswick,  Generallissimo  of  the  Confederation,  at  Frankfort. 
The  duke,  who  had  married  a  sister  of  George  III.  of  England,  was  an  en- 
ergetic, veteran  soldier,  fifty  years  of  age.  His  head-quarters  were  at  Cob- 
lentz,  a  town  at  the  confluence  of  the  Moselle  and  the  Khine,  in  the  state  of 
the  Elector  of  Treves.  Twentj^-two  thousand  French  emigrants  had  assem- 
bled there  in  arms.  Seven  French  princes  of  the  House  of  Bourbon  were 
marshaling  them  for  battle  against  their  native  land — to  crush  the  people 
struggling  for  liberty — to  rivet  anew  the  fetters  of  the  most  execrable  des- 
potism. These  princes  were  the  two  brothers  of  the  king,  Louis  and  Charles, 
the  one  subsequently  Louis  XVIIL,  the  other  Charles  X. ;  the  Duke  of 
Berri  and  the  Duke  of  Angouleme,  sons  of  Charles ;  the  Prince  of  Conde, 
cousin  of  the  king,  his  son,  the  Duke  of  Bourbon,  and  his  grandson,  the 

*  Prof.  Wm.  Smyth,  of  the  University  of  C.imbridge,  England,  though  cherishing  no  sjTnpa- 
thies  with  the  revohitionary  party  in  France,  in  his  admirable  lectures  upon  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, with  his  accustomed  candor,  says, 

"The  question  then  is,  Was  this  (the  conduct  of  Austria)  an  interference  in  the  internal  affairs 
of  France  that  justified  a  declaration  of  war  on  the  part  of  France  or  not  ?  This  is  a  point  on 
which,  under  the  extraordinary  circumstances  of  the  case,  reasoners  may  differ,  but  I  conceive 
that  it  was.  The  rulers  of  France,  at  the  time,  saw  themselves  menaced,  stigmatized,  and,  as 
nearly  as  possible,  proscribed  by  a  foreign  power  on  account  of  their  conduct  to  their  own  king, 
in  their  own  country.  They  could  expect  nothing  but  exile,  imprisonment,  and  death  if  these 
foreign  powers  invaded  their  country  in  defense  of  the  monarchy  and  succeeded ;  and  not  only  this, 
but,  in  that  case,  a  cotinter-revolution  was  inevitable. 

"I  must  confess  that,  with  all  my  horror  of  war,  of  counsels  of  violence,  of  enthusiastic  and  fu- 
rious men  like  these  Girondists,  and  of  dreadful  and  guilty  men  like  these  Jacobins,  I  must  con- 
fess that  upon  this  particular  point  of  the  Austrian  war  I  am,  on  the  whole,  compelled  to  agree 
with  them.  I  see  not  how,  upon  any  other  principle,  the  peace  of  the  world  can  be  maintained, 
or  the  proper  sovereignty  and  independence  of  nations  be  preserved,  nor,  finally,  upon  any  other 
principle,  what  chance  there  can  ever  be  for  the  general  cause  of  the  freedom  of  mankind." 


252  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXV. 

Dake  d'Engliien.  All  the  military  noblesse  of  the  kingdom,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  few  who  had  accepted  the  Constitution,  had  deserted  their  garri- 
sons and  united  in  the  most  atrocious  act  of  treason.  They  were  not  only 
ready  to  march  themselves,  but  were  combining  despotic  Europe  to  march 
with  them  to  crush  the  liberties  of  their  country. 

The  peril  of  the  king  was  now  hourly  increasing,  for  he  was  playing  a 
double  part.  While  publicly  declaring  war  he  was  secretly  carrjdng  on  a 
correspondence  with  the  emigrants  and  with  the  foreign  powers,  encourag- 
ing them  to  make  war  upon  France.  This  was  known  by  some,  and  suspi- 
cions of  the  king's  sincerity  were  spreading  rapidly  among  the  people.  He 
had  many  papers  in  his  possession,  which,  if  discovered,  would  cause  his 
ruin.  To  conceal  them  he  had  an  iron  chest  built  into  the  thick  wall  of 
one  of  his  apartments.  This  was  done  by  the  confidential  locksmith  who 
had  been  his  companion  at  the  forge  for  ten  years.  The  wall  was  painted 
to  resemble  large  stones.  The  openings  of  the  panel  were  masked  in  the 
brown  grooves.  But  after  constructing  this  safe  the  king  was  apprehensive 
that  his  locksmith  would  betray  him,  and  he  consequently  intrusted  a  port- 
foho  containing  many  of  his  most  important  papers  to  the  care  of  Madame 
Campan. 

On  the  28th  of  April,  one  week  after  the  declaration  of  war,  a  very  ill- 
advised  attack  was  made  by  the  French  in  three  detachments  upon  three 
separate  positions  of  the  Austrians.  But  the  Austrians,  minutely  informed 
of  the  plan,  were  prepared,  in  stronger  numbers,  to  meet  their  foes.  The 
undisciplined  French  troops  were  driven  back  in  confusion  and  shame. 
They  thought  that  the  king  had  treacherously  ordered  them  to  be  led  into 
a  snare.  The  populace  generally  adopted  the  same  belief  After  this  the 
troops,  on  both  sides,  widely  dispersed  and  poorly  provided  with  ammuni- 
tion, provisions,  and  camp-equipage,  could  only  observe  each  other  for  sev- 
eral weeks,  and  make  preparation  for  the  opening  of  the  campaign. 

Suspicions  of  the  insincerity  of  the  king  were  rapidly  spreading  among 
the  people,  while  those  acquainted  with  the  royal  family  saw  plainly  that 
they  were  placing  all  their  reliance  in  hopes  of  assistance  from  the  armed 
emigrants.  Barnave,  who,  since  the  return  from  Varenncs,  had  periled  his 
influence  and  his  life  in  his  endeavor  to  save  the  royal  flimily,  finding  all  his 
efforts  rejected,  and  that  the  king  and  queen  were  rushing  to  ruin,  solicited 
IX  last  audience  with  the  queen. 

"  Your  misfortunes,"  said  he,  "  and  those  which  I  anticipate  for  France 
determined  me  to  sacrifice  myself  to  serve  you.  I  see  that  my  advice  does 
not  agree  with  the  views  of  your  majesties.  I  augur  but  little  advantage 
from  the  plan  you  are  induced  to  pursue ;  you  are  too  remote  from  your 
succors;  you  will  be  lost  before  they  reach  you.  Most  ardently  do  I  wish 
I  may  be  mistaken  in  so  lamentable  a  prediction.  But  I  am  sure  to  pay  my 
head  for  the  interest  your  misfortunes  have  raised  in  me  and  the  services  I 
have  sought  to  render  you.  I  request  for  my  sole  reward  the  honor  of 
kissing  your  hand." 

The  quoon,  her  eyes  suffused  with  tears,  presented  her  hand  to  Baniave, 
and  he,  with  mueli  emotion  imprinting  a  kiss  ujion  it,  took  his  leave.  Ilis 
devotion  to  tlie  quoen,  Iwnvever,  cost  him  his  life.  Hardly  a  year  elapsed 
ere  he  was  led  to  the  scaflbld. 


1792.]  COMMENCEMENT  OF  HOSTILITIES.  253 

Two  decrees  hacl  been  passed  by  the  Assembly  wbicli  were  quite  obnox- 
ious to  the  king.  One  decree  enacted  that  any  nonjuring  priest  who  should 
be  denounced  by  twenty  citizens  as  endeavoring  to  excite  faction  should  be 
banished  the  kingdom.  The  other  established  a  camp  of  twenty  thousand 
men*  under  the  walls  of  Paris  for  its  protection.  The  king,  expecting  that 
the  foreign  armies  would  soon  arrive  and  rescue  him,  put  his  veto  upon 
both  of  these  measures.  Dumouriez  entreated  the  king  to  sanction  these 
decrees,  but  in  vain,  and  he  was  compelled  to  resign  his  post  in  the  minis- 
try. He  was  immediately  commissioned  to  the  frontiers  to  aid  in  the  war 
against  the  invaders.  As  he  entered  the  cabinet  of  the  king  to  render  in 
his  accounts  and  to  take  leave,  the  king  said, 

"You  go,  then,  to  join  the  army  of  Luckner?" 

"  Yes,  sire,"  replied  Dumouriez,  "  and  I  am  delighted  to  leave  this  tumult- 
uous city.     I  have  but  one  regret — your  majesty  is  in  danger." 

"  Yes,"  replied  Louis,  with  a  sigh,  "  I  certainly  am." 

"Ah!  sire,"  returned  the  minister,  "you  can  no  longer  suppose  that  I 
spoke  from  any  interested  motive.  Let  me  implore  you  not  to  persist  in 
your  fatal  resolution." 

"  Speak  no  more  of  it,"  said  the  king,  "my  part  is  taken." 

"  Ah!  sire,"  rejoined  Dumouriez,  "you  said  the  same  when  in  this  very 
chamber  in  the  presence  of  the  queen  you  gave  me  your  word." 

"  I  was  wrong  then,"  replied  the  king,  "  and  I  repent  that  I  did  so." 

"It  is  now,  sire,  that  you  are  wrong,"  continued  Dumouriez,  " not  then. 
I  shall  see  you  no  more.  They  abuse  your  religious  scruples.  They  arc 
leading  you  to  a  civil  war.  You  are  without  force,  and  you  will  be  over- 
powered. History  will  accuse  you  of  having  caused  the  calamities  of 
France." 

"God  is  my  witness,"  said  Louis  in  tones  of  the  deepest  affliction,  and  at 
the  same  time  placing  his  hands  affectionately  upon  those  of  Dumouriez, 
"  that  I  wish  the  happiness  of  France." 

Tears  gushed  into  the  eyes  of  Dumouriez,  and  his  voice  was  broken  with 
emotion  as  he  replied,  "  I  do  not  doubt  it,  sire ;  but  you  are  answerable  to 
God,  not  only  for  the  purity  but  for  the  enlightened  direction  of  your  inten- 
tions. You  think  that  you  are  protecting  religion,  and  you  are  destroying 
it.  The  priests  will  be  massacred.  You  will  lose  your  crown,  perhaps 
your  wife,  your  children." 

There  was  a  moment  of  silence,  during  which  the  king  pressed  the  hand 
of  his  faithful  friend ;  Dumouriez  then  continued : 

"  Sire,  if  all  the  French  knew  you  as  I  know  you,  our  calamities  would 
soon  be  at  an  end.  You  wish  the  happiness  of  France.  You  have  been 
sacrificing  yourself  to  the  nation  ever  since  1789.  Continue  to  do  so,  and 
our  troubles  will  soon  cease,  the  Constitution  will  be  established,  the  French 
will  return  to  their  natural  character,  and  the  remainder  of  your  reign  will 
be  happy." 

"I  expect  my  death,"  the  king  rejoined  mournfuU}^,  "and  I  forgive  my 
enemies.  I  thank  you  for  the  sensibility  you  have  shown.  You  have 
served  me  well,  and  you  have  my  esteem,  and  you  shall  have  proofs  of  it  if 
I  am  ever  to  see  a  better  day." 

*  Dumas,  vol.  i.,  p.  213. 


254  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.         [CUAP.  XXY. 

The  king  then  rose,  and,  to  conceal  his  emotion,  went  hastily  to  a  -window. 
Dumouricz  gathered  up  his  papers  slowly  that  he  might  have  time  to  regain 
his  composure.  As  he  was  leaving  the  room  the  king  again  approached 
him,  and  in  a  tremulous  tone  said  "  Adieu !  may  all  happiness  attend  you." 
They  parted,  both  in  tears.* 

M.  lioland,  ^linister  of  the  Interior,  presented  a  letter  to  the  king,  urging 
him  to  sanction  the  decrees,  and  to  adopt  a  course  more  in  accordance  with 
the  spirit  of  constitutional  liberty.  This  letter  has  obtained  world-wide  ce- 
lebrity. It  was  written  by  ^Madame  Roland,  the  wife  of  the  minister,  one  of 
the  most  extraordinary  women  of  that  or  any  other  age.  She  was,  in  fact, 
the  soul  of  the  Republican  party.  The  leaders  of  that  party  met  every  even- 
ing in  her  saloon,  and  her  sagacity  originated  the  measures  which  they  adopt- 
ed. She  was  a  woman  of  heroic  mould,  and  endowed  with  wonderful  powers 
of  intellect  and  eloquence.  The  letter  contained  a  lively  exposition  of  the 
peril  to  which  the  king  was  exposed  by  opposing  the  establishment  of  con- 
stitutional liberty  in  France.  The  indignation  of  the  king  was  aroused  by 
its  plain  utterance,  and  he  instantly  dismissed  the  Republican  minister,  Ro- 
land, with  his  associates,  Servan  and  Clavieres.  Roland  presented  to  the  As- 
sembly the  letter  which  had  caused  his  dismission.  It  roused  the  indigna- 
tion of  the  Assembly  against  the  king,  and  fanned  Paris  into  almost  a  flame 
of  fury.  The  letter  was  printed  and  copies  sent  to  the  eighty-three  depart- 
ments, and  a  vote  was  passed  that  the  three  ministers  whom  the  king  had 
rejected  retained  the  entire  confidence  of  the  nation.  This  was  another  ac- 
cusation against  the  king,  which  greatly  increased  his  unpopularity. 

The  vetos  of  the  king  and  the  dismissal  of  the  popular  ministers  roused  a 
new  storm  of  indignation.  Neither  the  king  nor  queen  could  appear  at  the 
windows  of  tlie  palace  without  exposing  themselves  to  the  most  atrocious 
insults  of  language  and  gesture  from  the  brutal  men  who  ever  thronged  the 
garden.f 

The  king  lost  all  heart,  and  sank  into  the  most  deplorable  condition  of 
mental  and  physical  weakness.  For  ten  days  he  wandered  restlessl}^  through 
his  apartments  with  a  bewildered,  vacant  stare,  without  uttering  a  single 
word  even  to  his  wife  and  children,  and  scarcely  making  any  reply  to  ques- 
tions addressed  to  him.  His  sister,  Madame  Elizabeth,  endeavored  to  inter- 
est him  in  a  game  of  backgammon.  lie  sat  listlessly  at  the  board,  mechan- 
ically throwing  the  dice,  and  simply  repeating  the  words  which  belong  to 
the  game. 

"  The  queen,"  says  Madame  Campan,  "  roused  him  from  this  state,  so  fatal 
at  a  critical  period,  when  every  minute  increased  the  necessity  for  action,  by 
throwing  herself  at  his  feet,  urging  every  idea  calculated  to  excite  alarm,  and 
employing  every  affectionate  expression.     She  represented,  also,  what  he 

♦  Memoirs  of  Diimouripz. 

t  "The  most  mcniuinn  crips  wore  nftorod  nlond,  cvon  in  tlio  Tuilcrics.  They  enlleil  for  the 
(lestriu-tiou  of  the  thnme  nnd  the  murder  of  tlie  sovercipn.  Tliesc  insults  nssnmeil  the  elnirncter 
of  the  very  K)\veRt  of  tlie  nioli.  The  ipieen,  one  day,  henrinp  ronrs  of  laughter  under  her  win- 
dowH,  desired  mc  to  sec  what  it  was  ahout.  I  saw  a  man,  almost  undressed,  turniuR  his  hack 
toward  her  apartments.  My  astonishment  and  indij-nation  were  ajiparent.  The  queen  rose  to 
come  forward.  I  held  her  hack,  tcjliuf;  her  it  was  a  very  pross  in-;iilt  ofll-rcd  by  one  of  the  rab- 
hlc." — Mvmuira  of  Marie  Antoiiutte,  lnj  Madame  Vnnipun,  vol.  ii.,  jt.  205. 


1792.] 


COMMENCEMENT  OF  HOSTILITIES. 


255 


owed  to  his  family,  and  went  so  far  as  to  tell  him  that,  if  they  were  doomed 
to  fall,  they  ought  to  fall  honorably,  and  not  to  wait  to  be  both  smothered 
upon  the  floor  of  their  apartment."* 

On  the  20th  of  June  there  was  an  immense  gathering  of  the  populace  of 
Paris,  and  of  delegates  from  other  parts  of  the  kingdom,  to  celebrate  the  an- 
niversary of  the  meeting  in  the  tennis-court,  and  to  present  a  petition  to  the 
king  urging  him  to  withdraw  his  vetos.  Deep  apprehensions  were  felt  in 
several  quarters  respecting  the  results  of  the  day.  Petion,  who  was  then 
mayor  of  the  city,  did  not  venture  to  prohibit  the. celebration,  but  adopted 
the  precaution  of  doubling  the  guard  of  the  Tuileries. 


FESTIVAL   IN    HONOE   OP   LIBEETY. 

Early  in  the  morning  the  whole  city  was  in  commotion,  and  vast  crowds 
were  hurrying  to  the  various  points  of  concentration.  The  Assembly  met  at 
eleven  o'clock,  and  was  alarmed  in  view  of  the  possible  issues  of  the  day,  and 
agitated  by  discordant  councils.  The  session  soon  became  tumultuous,  the 
Constitutionalists  wishing  to  repress  the  disorder  which  the  Jacobins  were 
ready  to  foment.  In  this  state  of  affairs  a  letter  was  brought  into  the  As- 
sembly from  Santerre,  a  brewer,  who  had  become  notorious  as  a  leader  of 
the  populace.f    It  stated  that  the  citizens  were  merely  celebrating  the  anni- 

*  Madame  Campan,  vol.  ii.,  p.  206. 

t  Montjoie,  one  of  the  most  decided  of  Eoyalist  writers,  thus  descrihes  Santerre  :  "The  mus- 
cular expansion  of  his  tall  person,  the  sonorous  hoarseness  of  his  voice,  his  rough  manners,  and 
his  easy  and  vulgar  eloquence,  of  course  made  him  a  hero  among  the  lower  rabble.  And,  in 
truth,  he  had  gained  a  despotic  empire  over  the  dregs  of  the  faubourgs.    He  moved  them  at  will, 


256  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXV. 

versary  of  the  20tli  of  June ;  that  they  were  calumniated  in  the  Assembly ; 
and  that  thc}^  beg  to  be  admitted  to  the  bar  of  the  Assembly  that  they  might 
confound  their  slanderers. 

The  reading  of  this  letter  vastly  increased  the  tumult.  In  the  midst  of 
cries  of  order,  and  a  scene  of  indescribable  confusion,  it  was  announced  that 
the  petitioners,  with  arms  and  banners,  in  a  prolonged  procession  of  thirty 
thousand  men,  were  approaching  the  hall.  All  power  of  law  seemed  para- 
lyzed, and  bewilderment  and  consternation  reigned.  Soon  the  head  of  the 
procession,  like  a  lava-flood,  crowded  in  at  the  door,  and,  pressed  by  the  re- 
sistless mass  behind,  was  forced  slowly  through  the  hall,  and  made  its  egress 
at  an  opposite  portal.  They  bore  enormous  tables,  upon  which  were  placed 
the  Declaration  of  Eights.  Around  these  tables  danced  women  and  bo3's 
waving  olive-branches  and  brandishing  pikes,  thus  emblematically  declaring 
themselves  ready  for  peace  or  war. 

The  enormous  procession  filed  slowly  through  the  hall,  shouting  in  deaf- 
ening chorus  the  famous  "  ^a  ?Va"  (bravely  it  goes),  armed  with  every  con- 
ceivable weapon,  and  waving  banners  inscribed  with  revolutionary  devices. 
Several  bore  ragged  breeches  upon  poles,  while  the  crowd  around  shouted, 
^^Vivent  Ics  sans  culottes  T  One  man  bore  on  the  point  of  a  pike  a  calf's 
heart,  with  the  inscription  beneath,  "  The  heart  of  an  aristocraty* 

For  three  hours  this  extraordinary  scene  continued.  The  Assembly,  agi- 
tated with  grief  and  indignation,  had  no  resource  but  submission.  The  mob, 
having  passed  through  the  hall  of  the  Assembly,  now  attempted  to  enter  the 
garden  of  the  Tuileries,  but  the  gates  were  closed  and  defended  by  numerous 
detachments  of  the  National  Guard.  The  king,  however,  perhaps  hoping, 
by  a  show  of  confidence,  to  disarm  the  mob,  ordered  the  garden  gates  to  be 
thrown  open.  The  mob,  like  an  inundation,  rushed  in,  and  with  their  mighty 
mass  soon  filled  the  whole  inclosure.  Some  cried  out  for  the  king  to  show 
himself.  Others  shouted,  "  Down  with  the  veto  F  A  few  voices  kindly  gave 
utterance  to  the  old  excuse,  "  The  king  means  well,  but  he  is  imposed  upon." 

The  mob,  which  now  appeared  countless  and  almost  limitless,  flowing  out 
from  the  garden  by  the  gate  leading  to  the  Pont  Royal,  proceeded  along  the 
quay  and  through  the  wickets  of  the  Louvre  into  the  Place  du  Carrousel. 
They  were  soon  gathered  in  a  dense  mass  before  the  roj'-al  gate  of  the  pal- 
ace. A  strong  guard  there  refused  them  admittance.  Santerre  brought  up 
two  pieces  of  cannon  to  blow  down  the  gate.  Two  municipal  officers  then 
strangely  ordered  the  gates  to  be  thrown  open. 

The  multitude  rushed  impetuously  into  the  court,  filling  it  in  an  instant, 
and  crowding  into  the  vestibule  of  the  palace.  It  was  now  four  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon.     They  clambered  the  magnificent  stair-case,  even  dragging  a 

lint  that  wfts  all  ho  know  how  to  ilo,  or  oonld  do,  for,  as  to  the  rest,  he  was  neither  w irked  nor 
«TUol.  He  onpnpod  Mindly  in  nil  cons]iirnries,  hut  he  never  was  puilty  of  the  execution  of  them, 
oithcr  hy  hinisolf  or  hy  those  who  oljoyed  him.  He  was  always  concerned  for  an  unfortunate 
jK-rson,  of  whntovcr  party  lie  miuht  he.  Aflliction  and  tears  disarmed  his  hands."— //w/ory  of 
Mitrif  Atiloinrltr,  In/  Montjoie,  p.  295. 

•  Madame  fiimiinn  says,  "  There  was  one  representinp  a  pihhet,  to  which  a  dirty  doll  was  sus- 
l)cndc(l ;  the  words  '  M,irie  Autointttc  a  la  lantcrne'  were  written  heneath  it.  Another  was  a  hoard 
to  which  a  hullock's  heart  was  fastened,  with  an  inscrijuion  round  it,  'Heart  o/LomsXVJ.  ;'  and 
then  a  third  showed  the  horiLS  of  un  ox,  with  au  obscene  legend. "—J/at/u/HC  Coiii}>an,  vol.  ii.,  p.  212. 


1792.]  COMMENCEMENT  OF  HOSTILITIES.  257 

piece  of  cannon  up  to  the  first  floor,  and  poured  in  locust  legions  into  every 
part  of  the  palace.  Wherever  they  found  a  door  barred  against  them  they 
speedily,  with  swords  and  hatchets,  hewed  it  down. 

The  king  was  in  one  of  the  interior  apartments,  surrounded  by  some  of 
the  servants  of  his  household  and  by  several  officers  of  the  National  Guard. 
His  sister,  Madame  EHzabeth,  happened  to  be  with  him ;  but  the  queen,  who 
was  in  another  room  with  her  children,  had  not  been  able  to  join  her  hus- 
band, so  sudden  had  been  the  irruption.  The  crowd  arrested  her  in  her  flight 
ill  the  council-chamber.  She  begged  earnestly  to  be  led  to  her  husband,  but 
the  throng  pouring  by  was  so  dense  that  it  was  impossible.  Her  friends 
placed  her  in  a  corner,  and  rolled  the  council-table  before  her  as  a  barrier. 

There  she  stood  stupefied  with  horror,  and  her  eyes  suffused  with  tears, 
while  the  low  and  brutal  masses,  with  no  apparent  exasperation,  end,  or  aim, 
crowded  by.  Her  daughter  clung  to  her  side,  terrified  and  weeping.  Her 
son,  but  seven  years  of  age,  too  young  to  understand  the  terrible  significance 
of  such  an  inundation,  gazed  upon  the  spectacle  with  half  alarmed,  half 
pleased  wonder.  Some  of  the  palace-guard  gathered  around  the  group  for 
its  protection.  Occasional  scowls  and  mutterings  of  defiance  and  insult 
alarmed  the  queen  in  behalf  of  her  children  rather  than  herself  Some  one 
handed  her  son  the  red  cap  of  the  Jacobins.  The  queen,  hoping  that  it  might 
a]3pease  the  mob,  placed  it  upon  his  head. 

Just  then  Santerre  came  along,  forcing  his  way  with  the  crowd.  He  spoke 
kindly  to  the  queen,  repeating  the  only  excuse  which  could  be  made  for  her, 
"  Madame,  you  are  imposed  upon,"  Seeing  the  red  cap  upon  the  head  of  the 
dauphin,  he,  with  a  sense  of  delicacy  hardly  to  be  expected  in  so  coarse  a 
man,  took  it  and  threw  it  aside,  saying,  "  The  child  is  stifling."  He  then 
urged  the  people  to  treat  the  queen  with  respect, 

A  young  girl  stopped  before  the  queen  and  assailed  her  with  an  incessant 
volley  of  imprecations. 

"Have  I  ever,"  said  the  queen,  calmly,  "done  you  any  wrong?" 

"  No,"  replied  the  girl,  "not  me  personally ;  but  you  are  the  cause  of  the 
misery  of  the  nation." 

"You  have  been  told  so,"  answered  the  queen;  "but  you  are  deceived. 
As  the  wife  of  the  King  of  France  and  mother  of  the  dauphin,  I  am  a  French- 
woman. I  shall  never  see  my  own  country  again.  I  can  be  ha]3py  only  in 
Prance.     I  was  happy  when  you  loved  me." 

These  words  touched  the  heart  of  the  passionate  but  not  hardened  girl, 
and  she  began  to  weep,  saying, 

"  I  ask  your  pardon.  It  was  because  I  did  not  know  you.  I  see  that  you 
are  good." 

While  these  scenes  were  transpiring  in  the  council-chamber,  the  cries  of 
the  mob  were  heard  at  the  door  of  the  king's  apartment,  and  blows  from  a 
hatchet  fell  heavily  upon  the  panels.  As  a  panel,  driven  by  a  violent  blow, 
fell  at  the  king's  feet,  he  ordered  the  door  to  be  thrown  open.  A  forest  of 
pikes  and  bayonets  appeared,  and  the  crowd  rushed  in.  The  king,  with  that 
courage  of  resignation  which  never  forsook  him,  stepped  forward  with  dig- 
nity to  meet  the  rabble,  and  said,  "  Here  I  am." 

His  friends  immediately  threw  themselves  around  him,  forming  a  rampart 

R 


258  THE  FRENCH  KEVOLUTIUN.  [CUAP.  XXV. 

with  their  bodies.  The  mob,  who  seemed  to  have  no  definite  object  in  view, 
fell  back,  and  the  friends  of  the  king  placed  him  in  the  embrasure  of  a  win- 
dow, where  he  could  more  easily  be  protected  from  the  pressure.  There  was 
a  moment  s  lull,  and  then  came  renewed  clamor  and  uproar.  Some  siud  that 
they  had  a  petition  which  they  wished  to  present  to  the  king.  Others  shout- 
ed, "No  veto!     No  priests!     No  aristocrats!     The  camp  near  Paris." 

The  king  stood  upon  a  bench,  and  with  marvelous  serenity  gazed  upon 
the  unparalleled  spectacle.  Legendre,  the  butcher,  one  of  the  leaders  of  the 
mob,  stepped  up,  and  with  a  firm  voice  demanded  in  the  name  of  the  peo- 
[)le  the  sanction  of  the  two  decrees  which  the  king  had  vetoed.* 
•  "  This  is  not  the  place,  neither  is  this  the  time,"  answered  the  king,  firm- 
ly, "  to  grant  such  a  request.     I  will  do  all  the  Constitution  requires." 

This  bold  answer  seemed  to  exasperate  the  crowd,  and  they  shouted,  as  it 
were  defiantly,  "T7fe  la  Nation  P^ 

"  Yes,"  replied  the  king,  heroically,  "  Vive  la  Nation  !  and  I  am  its  best 
friend." 

''  Prove  it,  then,"  cried  one  of  the  rabble,  thrusting  toward  him,  on  the  end 
of  a  pike,  the  red  cap  of  the  Jacobins. 

The  king  took  the  cap  and  placed  it  upon  his  head.  The  mob  responded 
with  shouts  of  applause.  The  day  was  oppressively  hot,  and  the  king,  who 
was  veiy  corpulent,  was  almost  suffocated  with  the  heat  and  the  crowd.  A 
drunken  fellow,  who  had  a  bottle  and  a  glass,  staggered  up  to  the  king,  and 
offered  him  a  tumbler  of  wine,  saying,  "  Kyou  love  the  people,  drink  to  their 
health." 

Though  the  king  had  long  been  apprehensive  of  being  poisoned,  he  took 
the  glass  and  without  hesitation  drank  its  contents.  Again  he  was  greeted 
with  shouts  of  applause.  Some  of  the  crowd,  as  they  caught  sight  of  Mad- 
ame Elizabeth,  cried  out,  "  There  is  the  Austrian  woman !"  The  unpopu- 
larity of  the  queen  excited  murmurs  and  imprecations,  and  the  princess  was 
in  great  danger  of  violence.  Some  of  her  friends  around  her  endeavored  to 
undeceive  the  mob. 

"  Leave  them,"  said  the  generous  and  heroic  princess,  "  leave  them  to 
think  that  I  am  the  queen,  that  she  may  have  time  to  escape." 

The  Assembly  was  immediately  informed  of  the  invasion  of  the  palace. 
The  Constitutionalists  were  indignant.  The  Jacobins  were  satisfied,  for  they 
wished  to  see  the  king  and  the  king's  party  frightened  into  obedience.  An 
angry  and  almost  furious  altercation  ensued  in  the  Assembly.  A  deputa- 
ti(jn  of  twenty-four  members  was,  however,  immediately  sent  to  surround 
the  king,  and  this  deputation  was  renewed  every  half  hour.  But  the  depu- 
ties could  not  force  their  way  through  the  crowd.  Iloisted  upon  the  shoul- 
ders of  the  grenadiers  they  endeavored  in  vain  to  harangue  the  mob  to  or- 
der. It  was  half  past  five  o'clock,  an  hour  and  a  half  after  the  attack  upon 
the  Tuilories  had  commencc<l,  before  Petion,  the  Mayor  of  Paris,  made  his 

•  IjORfndrc  wns  n  l.utcluT  of  I'nris.  He  wns  one  of  the  most  violent  lenders  of  the  nioh.  In 
1701  he  wiw  deputed  hy  the  city  of  Pnris  to  the  National  Convention.  In  1703  he  voted  for  the 
kiiiK's  death,  and,  the  day  before  his  exeeiition,  jirojjosed  to  the  Jneohins  to  eut  him  into  eij;hty- 
four  |•iecc^  and  send  one  to  each  of  the  eiphty-four  dei)nrtm(nts.  He  died  nt  Paris  in  1 707.  aped 
forty-one,  and  bequeathed  his  body  to  the  surgeons,  "iu  order  to  be  useful  to  mankind  after  his 
death. " — Bioijraphie  Motlmic. 


1792.] 


COMMENCEMENT  OF  HOSTILITIES. 


259 


TnE  CAP   OF   IIlitBTY    PL«ED    UPON  TUE   klNO. 


appearance  in  the  presence  of  the  king.     He  attempted  an  apology  for  com- 
ing so  late,  saying, 

"  I  have  only  just  learned  the  situation  of  your  majesty." 
"  That  is  very  astonishing,"  replied  the  king,  "  for  it  is  a  long  time  that  it 
has  lasted." 

"  It  was  half  past  four,"  Petion  rejoined,  "  when  I  heard  of  the  attack.  It 
took  me  half  an  hour  to  get  to  the  palace ;  and  I  could  not  overcome  the 
obstacles  which  separated  me  from  your  majesty  until  the  present  moment. 
But  fear  nothing,  sire ;  you  are  in  the  midst  of  your  people." 


260  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXV. 

Louis  XTI.,  taking  the  hand  of  a  grenadier  who  stood  by  his  side,  placed 
it  upon  his  heart,  saying,  "  Feel  whether  it  beats  quicker  than  usual." 

This  noble  answer  again  elicited  applause.  The  mayor  then,  mounting 
the  shoulders  of  four  grenadiers,  addressed  the  mob,  urging  them  to  retire. 

"  Citizens,  male  and  female,"  said  he,  "  you  have  used  with  moderation 
and  dignity  your  right  of  petition.  You  will  finish  this  day  as  you  begun 
it.  Hitherto  your  conduct  has  been  in  conformity  with  the  law,  and  now, 
in  the  name  of  the  law,  I  call  upon  you  to  follow  my  example  and  to  retire." 

The  crowd  obeyed  and  slowly  moved  off  through  the  long  suite  of  apart- 
ments of  the  chateau.  As  soon  as  they  began  to  retire  the  king  and  his  sis- 
ter threw  themselves  into  each  other's  arms,  and  neither  was  able  to  repress 
a  flood  of  tears.  Locked  in  an  embrace  they  left  the  room  to  find  the  queen. 
She,  with  her  children,  had  just  regained  her  apartment.  The  meeting  of 
the  royal  family,  after  these  scenes  of  violence,  insult,  and  terror,  drew  tears 
into  tlie  eyes  of  all  the  beholders.  One  of  the  deputies,  Antoine  Merlin  of 
Thionville,  though  one  of  the  most  virulent  of  the  Jacobins,  could  not  re- 
frain from  weeping,  Marie  Antoinette  observing  it,  and  knowing  his  bitter 
iiostility  to  the  court,  said, 

"  You  weep  to  see  the  king  and  his  family  treated  so  cruelly  by  a  people 
whom  he  has  always  wished  to  render  happy." 

"  It  is  true,  madam,"  replied  Merlin,  "  I  weep  over  the  misfortunes  of  a 
beautiful,  tender-hearted  woman  and  mother  of  a  family.  But  do  not  mis- 
take ;  there  is  not  one  of  my  tears  for  the  king  or  the  queen  ;  I  hate  kings 
and  queens." 

At  this  moment  the  king,  from  the  reflection  of  a  mirror,  saw  the  red  bon- 
net still  upon  his  head.  A  crimson  glow  flushed  his  foce  and  he  hastily 
threw  the  badge  of  the  Jacobin  from  him.  Sinking  into  a  chair  he  for  a 
moment  buried  his  face  in  his  handkerchief,  and  then,  turning  a  saddened 
look  to  the  queen,  said, 

"  Ah,  madame,  why  did  I  take  you  from  your  country  to  associate  you 
\\\\h  the  ignominy  of  such  a  day!" 

It  was  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening  before  the  apartments  and  corridors 
of  the  palace  ceased  to  echo  with  the  voices  and  the  footsteps  of  the  barba- 
rian invaders.  Detachments  of  the  National  Guard  gradually  assembled, 
the  court-yard  and  the  garden  were  cleared,  and  night  with  its  silence  and 
darkness  again  settled  down  over  the  wretched  royal  family  in  the  halls 
of  their  palace,  and  the  wretched  famishing  outcasts  wandering  through  the 
streets.     Such  was  the  20th  of  June,  1792. 

Napoleon  Bonaparte,  then  twenty -two  3^ears  of  age,  was  in  Paris,  and  with 
indignation  witnessed  this  spectacle  of  lawlessness.  Bourrienne  thus  de- 
scribes the  event:  "In  the  montli  of  April,  1792, 1  returned  to  Paris,  where 
I  again  met  Bonaparte,  and  renewed  the  friendship  of  our  youthful  days.  I 
liad  not  been  fortunate,  and  adversity  pressed  heavily  upon  him.  AVe  ]iassed 
our  time  as  two  young  men  of  tliree  and  twenty  may  be  sup])osed  to  have 
done  wlio  liad  little  money  and  less  occupation.  At  this  time  he  was  solicit- 
ing employment  from  the  Minister  of  War,  and  I  at  the  office  of  foreign  af- 
fairs. 

"While  we  were  thus  spending  our  lime  the  20th  of  June  arrived,  a  sad 


1792.] 


COMMENCEMENT  OF  HOSTILITIES. 


261 


THE   ATTACK   UPON   THE  TXTII.ERIES. 


prelude  of  the  lOtli  of  August.  We  met  by  appointment  at  a  restaurateur's, 
in  the  Eue  St.  Honore,  near  the  Palais  Eojal.  On  going  out  we  saw  a  mob 
approaching  in  the  direction  of  the  market-place,  which  Bonaparte  estimated 
at  from  five  to  six  thousand  men.  They  were  a  parcel  of  blackguards, 
armed  with  weapons  of  every  description,  and  shouting  the  grossest  abuse, 
while  they  proceeded  at  a  rapid  rate  toward  the  Tuileries.  This  mob  ap- 
peared to  consist  of  the  vilest  and  most  profligate  of  the  population  of  the 
suburbs. 

*' '  Let  us  follow  the  rabble,'  said  Bonaparte.  "We  got  the  start  of  them, 
and  took  up  our  station  on  the  terrace  bordering  on  the  river.  It  was  there 
that  he  was  an  eye-witness  of  the.  scandalous  scenes  which  ensued,  and  it 
would  be  difiicult  to  describe  the  surprise  and  indignation  which  they  excit- 
ed in  him.  Such  weakness  and  forbearance,  he  said,  could  not  be  excused. 
But  when  the  king  showed  himself  at  the  window  which  looked  out  upon 
the  garden,  with  the  red  cap  which  one  of  the  mob  had  just  placed  upon  his 
head,  he  could  no  longer  repress  his  indignation. 

"  '  What  madness !'  he  loudly  exclaimed.  '  How  could  they  have  allowed 
that  rabble  to  enter  ?  Why  did  they  not  sweep  away  four  or  five  hundred 
of  them  with  the  cannon?  The  rest  would  then  have  speedily  taken  to 
their  heels.' " 


2(52  THE  FKENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXVI. 


CHxVPTER  XXYI. 

THE  THRONE  ASSAILED. 

Aiiprj-  Intcn-icw  between  the  King  and  the  Mayor. — Decisive  Action  of  La  Fayette. — Expecta- 
tions of  the  Queen. — Movement  of  the  Prussian  Army. — Efforts  of  the  Priests. — Secret  Com- 
mittee of  Royalists. — Terror  in  the  Palace. — The  Queen's  View  of  the  King's  Character. — 
Parties  in  France. — Energetic  Action  of  the  Assembly, — Speech  of  Vcrgniaud. 

The  next  day  after  the  fearful  scenes  of  the  20th  of  June,  the  Assembly 
lield  a  very  tumultuous  sitting.  Various  measures  were  proposed  to  pre- 
vent a  repetition  of  armed  petitions,  and  the  filing  of  processions  through 
the  hall.  The  Jacobins  were,  however,  in  sympathy  with  the  mob ;  and 
the  Royalists,  waiting  the  approach  of  foreign  armies,  had  no  wish  to  intro- 
duce order  but  by  the  sword  of  invasion.  It  was  apprehended  that  the 
mob,  who  had  now  risen  above  the  power  of  law,  might  again  invade  the 
palace.  In  the  afternoon  of  the  21st,  crowds  began  to  assemble  at  various 
points,  but  the  mayor.  Potion,  succeeded  in  inducing  them  to  disperse.  lie 
then  hastened  to  the  king,  and  said  to  him, 

"  Sire,  there  is  no  longer  cause  for  alarm.  Order  is  restored.  The  peo- 
ple have  become  tranquil  and  satisfied." 

The  king,  who  now  appreciated  the  peril  of  his  position,  was  exasperated, 
and  replied,  with  suppressed  emotion,  "  That  is  not  true." 

"  Sire — "  rejoined  Petion. 

"  Be  silent,"  said  the  king  sternly,  interrupting  him. 

"It  befitS'not  the  magistrate  of  the  people,"  replied  Petion,  "to  be  silent 
when  he  does  his  duty  and  speaks  the  truth," 

"  The  tranquillity  of  Paris  rests  on  your  head,"  added  the  king. 

"  I  know  my  duty,"  Potion  replied,  "  and  shall  perform  it," 

The  king  could  no  longer  restrain  himself,  and  passionately  exclaimed, 
"  Enough ;  go  and  perform  it.     Retire." 

Potion,  thus  summarily  turned  out  of  doors,  bowed  and  left.  The  report 
of  the  angry  interview  was  speedily  spread  through  Paris.  It  was  rumored 
Ihroutjh  the  palace  that  the  mob  were  preparing  to  rise  to  murder  the  king 
and  all  the  royal  famil3^  It  was  rumored  through,  the  streets  that  the  Royal- 
i.sts  were  endeavoring  to  provoke  the  people  to  rise,  that  they  might  shoot 
them  down  with  artillery.  The  mayor  issued  a  proclamation  urging  the 
peojilc  not  to  allow  tliemselves  to  be  excited  to  fresh  commotions.  The 
king  is.sncd  a  proclamation,  spirited  and  defiant  in  its  tone,  and  yet  calcu- 
lated only  to  cxa.'^perate  tho.se  whom  he  had  no  power  to  restrain.* 

♦  "  Immodintcly  after  the  20th  of  Juno,"  writes  Madame  Canipan,  "the  queen  lost  all  hope 
but  from  foreign  succors.  She  wrote  to  inijilore  her  own  family,  and  the  brothei-s  of  tin-  king; 
and  her  lettent  lK!«'ome  jirobably  more  and  more  j)ressing,  and  expressed  her  feai-s  from  the  tardy 
manner  in  which  the  succors  Bcemed  to  ai)])roach."— J/hhioi/\s  „/  M,nic  Antuiucttc,  by  Mailam 
(.'(impan,  vol.  ii.,  p,  214. 


1792.]  THE  THRONE  ASSAILED.  263 

La  Fayette,  who  was  at  this  time  wntli  his  division  of  the  army  on  the 
frontiers,  heard  these  tidings  from  Paris  with  intense  alarm.  Had  the  court 
not  prevented  his  election  as  mayor,  the  outrages  of  the  20th  of  June  could 
not  have  occurred.  His  only  hope  for  France  was  in  the  Constitution. 
The  invasion  of  the  Legislative  Assembly  by  the  mob,  the  irruption  into 
the  palace,  and  the  outrages  inflicted  upon  the  royal  family,  impressed  him 
with  shame  and  horror.  He  saw  the  terrific  reign  of  anarchy  approaching, 
and  was  fully  conscious  that  no  one  could  attempt  to  resist  the  popular  tor- 
rent but  at  the  peril  of  his  life.  He  wrote  a  very  earnest  letter  of  remon- 
strance to  the  Assembly,  and  resolved  to  hasten  immediately  to  Paris,  and 
to  brave  every  possible  danger  in  endeavoring  to  restore  to  his  country  the 
dominion  of  law.  Making  all  the  arrangements  in  his  power,  that  his  tem- 
porary absence  might  not  be  detrimental  to  the  military  operations  then  in 
progress,  he  set  out  for  the  capital,  and  arrived  there  on  the  28th  of  June.* 
He  thought  that  he  might  rely  upon  the  National  Guard  to  aid  him  in 
maintaining  the  Constitution,  and  that,  throwing  himself  into  the  breach  to 
save  the  monarchy  and  the  king,  he  might  place  some  reliance  upon  the 
co-operation  of  the  court.  But  the  court  hated  La  Fayette  and  constitu- 
tional liberty,  and  wished  for  no  assistance  but  from  the  armies  of  the  allies, 
through  whom  they  might  dictate  terms  to  the  re-enslaved  people. 

La  Fayette,  immediately  upon  his  arrival  in  Paris,  sent  a  message  to  the 
Assembly  that  he  wished  for  permission  to  address  them.  At  half-past  one 
of  the  28th  of  June,  he  entered  the  hall.  The  Constitutionalists  received 
him  with  plaudits.  The  Eepublicans,  both  the  Girondists  and  the  Jacobins, 
were  silent.  The  general,  in  his  bold  and  spirited  address,  spoke  of  the 
disgrace  which  the  outrages  of  the  20th  of  June  had  brought  upon  the  na- 
tion, and  the  indignation  which  it  had  excited  in  the  army,  and  urged  that 
the  instigators  of  the  riot  should  be  prosecuted ;  that  the  Jacobin  Club,  ever 
urging  violence  and  revolution,  should  be  suppressed ;  and  that  the  Consti- 
tution and  the  laws  should  be  maintained  by  all  the  armed  force  of  the 
government. 

This  speech  introduced  an  angry  debate,  in  which  La  Fayette  was  re- 
proached with  neglecting  his  own  duties  in  the  army  to  meddle  with  matters 
in  which  he  had  no  concern.  La  Fayette  left  the  Assembly  in  the  midst 
of  the  debate,  and  repaired  to  the  palace  to  see  what  assistance  he  could 
render  to  the  king  and  queen.  The  courtiers  surrounding  the  monarch, 
with  their  wonted  infatuation,  assailed  La  Fayette  with  the  most  abusive 
epithets.  The  king  and  queen  received  him  with  great  coldness,  and  refused 
to  accept  from  him  of  any  sympathy  or  aid. 

"If  the  court  and  the  people  attached  to  the  king,"  writes  the  Marquis 
de  Ferrieres,  a  decided  Royalist,  "had  but  resolved  to  support  La  Fayette, 
there  was  force  to  have  annihilated  the  two  factions.  But  the  queen  re- 
coiled from  any  idea  of  owing  her  safety  to  a  man  whom  she  had  resolved 
to  ruin.  They  refused  to  enter  into  his  views,  and  they  thus  rejected  the 
only  means  of  safety  that  Providence  offered  them.     Inexplicable  blind- 

*  "Marshal  Lnckner  blamed  extremely  the  intention  La  Fayette  announced  of  repairing  to 
Paris,  'because,'  said  he,  '  the  sans  culottes  (ragamuffins)  will  cut  off  his  head.'  But  as  this  waF 
the  sole  objection  he  made,  the  general  resolved  to  set  out  alone." — La  Fayette's  Memoirs. 


264  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXYI. 

ness,  if  an  explanation  were  not  afforded  by  the  approaching  entry  of  the 
foreign  troops  and  the  confidence  reposed  in  them." 

The  historian  Toulongeon,  describing  these  events,  says,  "  Retired  to  his 
hotel.  La  Fayette  set  himself  to  consider  what  was  the  force  of  which  he 
could  avail  himself.  A  review  of  the  first  division  of  the  National  Guard 
was  tixed  for  the  next  morning  at  break  of  day.  The  king  was  to  pass 
along  the  line,  and  La  Fayette  was  then  to  harangue  the  troops.  But  the 
mayor,  Petion,  tvas  advertised  of  their  movements  by  the  queen,  who  feared  the 
success  of  La  Fayette  even  more  than  that  of  the  Jacobins,  and  a  counter- 
order  was  given,  and  the  review  did  not  take  place." 

La  Fayette  returned  to  the  army  thwarted  and  disheartened.  His  retire- 
ment in  despair  from  Paris  was  the  last  expiring  sigh  of  the  Constitutional 
party.  From  this  moment  the  Jacobins  resolved  upon  his  destruction,  and 
that  very  evening  his  effigy  was  burned  at  the  Palais  Royal.  Bertrand  de 
Moleville,  one  of  the  most  false  and  envenomed  of  the  Royalist  writers, 
condemns  La  Fayette  for  thus  leaving  Paris.  But  even  Professor  Smyth, 
whose  English  sympathies  are  strongly  with  the  court,  exclaims, 

•'  M.  Bertrand  de  Moleville  may  surely  be  asked,  on  this  occasion,  what 
resource  was  left  for  La  Fayette  but  to  move  away  from  Paris,  if  the  king 
and  the  court,  for  whom  he  was  hazarding  both  his  fame  and  his  safety, 
would  not  honor  him  with  the  slightest  countenance?  Was  it  to  be  en- 
dured that  they  were  to  seem  neutral  and  indifferent,  at  the  least,  and  sitting 
with  folded  arms,  while  he  was  to  be  left  to  rush  into  a  combat  in  the  As- 
sembly and  in  the  streets  of  Paris  with  their  furious  and  murderous  enemies, 
and  with  the  men  who  had  just  been  assailing  the  king  in  his  palace,  and 
who  evidently  only  waited  for  an  opportunity  to  rob  him  of  his  crown  and 
take  away  his  life ;  was  this,  I  repeat,  to  be  endured  ?  Many  are  the  sen- 
sations by  which  the  heart  of  man  may  be  alienated  and  imbittered,  but 
there  are  few  more  fitted  for  that  purpose  than  to  find  indifference  to  serv- 
ices offered,  and  ingratitude  for  sacrifices  made."* 

Both  the  king  and  the  queen  knew  that  Prussia  had  already  combined 
with  Austria,  and  was  secretly  marching  an  army  of  eighty  thousand  men 
under  the  Duke  of  Brunswick  to  unite  with  the  emigrants  at  Coblentz.  The 
queen  thought  that  the  allies  would  be  in  Paris  in  six  weeks.  She  was  mi- 
nutely informed  of  their  contemplated  movements ;  when  they  would  be  at 
Verdun,  when  at  Lille ;  and  she,  in  confidence,  informed  her  ladies  that  she 
expected  to  be  rescued  in  a  month.f 

The  peril  of  France  was  now  truly  great,  and  the  patriots  were  deeply 
agitated.  Foreign  armies  were  approaching.  The  king  not  only  was  tak- 
ing no  effectual  measures  for  the  defense  of  the  kingdom,  but  had  vetoed 

*  liootnrcs  on  tlic  French  Revolution,  vol.  ii.,  p.  290.  "The  queen  and  the  court,"  writes 
Prof.  Smyth,  "could  never  endure  La  Fayette,  ns  havinp  heen  the  first  preat  mover  and  origin- 
ator of  the  Revolution ;  the  cause,  as  he  thought,  of  the  liberties  of  his  country,  but  a  cause 
with  which  they  unfortunately  had  no  8ymi)athy." 

"The  queen  said  to  me,"  writes  Madame  Campan,  "that  La  Fayette  was  offered  to  them  as 
a  resource,  but  that  it  would  be  better  f..r  them  to  j)erish  than  to  owe  their  safety  to  a  nuin  who 
had  drme  them  the  most  mischief,  or  to  ),laee  themselves  un.ler  the  necessity  of  treating  with 
h\m."—Mtimoircs  of  Marie  AntoinctU;  hij  Mmlamc  Vampaii,  vol.  ii.,  p.  I'l'S. 

t  Thiers,  vol.  i.,  p.  278. 


1792.]  THE  THRONE  ASSAILED.  '      265 

the  decrees  of  the  Assembly  raising  an  army  for  the  protection  of  the  capi- 
ta], and  was  also  believed  to  be  in  sympathy  and  in  traitorous  correspond- 
ence with  the  foe.  France  was  threatened  with  invasion,  and  the  court  of 
France  was  virtually  guiding  the  march  of  the  invading  armies,  weakening 
every  point  of  defense,  and  striving  to  betray  the  patriot  forces  into  the 
hands  of  the  enemy.  The  only  excuse  which  history  can  offer  for  the  king 
is,  that  he  was  the  tool  of  others,  and  so  weak  and  characterless  that  he  was 
unconscious  of  the  enormity  of  his  crime.  But  this  excuse,  which  ought  to 
have  commended  him  to  pity,  could  not  be  an  argument  for  maintaining  him 
upon  his  throne. 

Though  it  was  well  known  to  all  intelligent  men  that  the  Prussian  armies 
were  marching  to  unite  with  the  Austrian  for  the  invasion  of  France,  yet  the 
king,  in  grossest  violation  of  duty,  had  made  no  communication  of  the  fact  to 
the  Legislative  Assembly.  All  the  great  roads  were  crowded  with  priests,  no- 
bles, and  their  partisans,  hastening  to  join  the  emigrants  at  Coblentz.  Couri- 
ers were  every  where  traversing  Europe,  from  St.  Petersburg  to  Kome,  from 
Stockholm  to  Madrid,  from  Berlin  to  Naples,  openly  announcing  the  coalition 
of  all  Europe  to  crush  the  revolution  in  France,  and  declaring  that  the  armies 
would  move  in  such  force  that  the  French  would  not  be  able  to  resist  them 
for  a  single  month.  The  allies  were  not  unwilling  to  have  their  plans  known 
and  even  exaggerated,  for  some  of  them  hoped  that  the  terror  of  the  threat 
might  be  sufficient  to  drive  the  French  patriots  to  submission.* 

It  was  consequently  proclaimed,  not  officially,  but  with  great  soundings 
of  trumpets,  that  Spain  was  to  indemnify  herself  for  the  war  by  taking  pos- 
session of  the  four  beautiful  southern  provinces  of  France  which  lean  against 
the  Pyrenees — Navarre,  Eoussillon,  Languedoc,  and  Guienne.  The  King  of 
Sardinia  was  to  receive  the  provinces  adjacent  to  his  kingdom,  whose  ro- 
mantic valleys  penetrated  the  lower  Alps — Dauphiny,  Provence,  Lyonnois, 
and  Bretagne.  The  Stadtholder  of  Holland  was  to  extend  his  sway  over 
the  Provinces  of  Flanders  and  Picardy.  Austria  was  to  grasp  the  provinces 
adjoining  the  Ehine — Alsace,  Lorraine,  Champagne.  The  Swiss  were  of- 
fered Franche  Comte  if  they  would  join  the  coalition.  And,  finally,  England 
was  to  regain  her  old  possession  of  Normandy,  and  was  to  seize  all  the  colo- 
nial possessions  of  France  in  the  two  Indies.f 

Though  the  British  government  was  at  this  time  strongly  in  sympathy 
with  the  coalition,  it  did  not  venture  openly  to  join  the  alliance,  for  the 
masses  of  the  British  people  were  cordially  with  the  French  patriots  and  re- 
joiced in  the  establishment  of  constitutional  liberty  in  France.     These  ex- 

*  "  The  king  had  committed  himself,  on  the  subject  of  the  Constitution,  to  the  allied  powers, 
in  the  instructions  he  had  given  to  Mallet  du  Pan,  and  was  no  longer  at  liberty,  even  if  he  had 
been  disposed,  on  account  of  any  such  object  as  the  Constitution,  to  have  united  himself  with  La 
Fayette,  not  even  though  La  Fayette  was  endeavoring  to  accomplish  the  great  point,  of  all  oth- 
ers to  be  most  desired,  the  overthrow  of  the  Girondists  and  the  Jacobins.  On  the  whole,  the 
court  must  be  considered  as  now  preferring  the  chance  of  the  invasion  of  the  allied  powers,  and 
the  king  the  chance  of  some  mediation  between  them  and  the  people  of  France,  that  is,  the 
chance  of  better  terms  than  the  Constitution  offered.  This  must,  I  think,  be  supposed  the  lino 
of  policy  that  was  now  adopted.  It  was  one  full  of  danger,  and,  on  the  whole,  a  mistake  ;  but 
with  the  expectation  that  was  then  so  generally  entertained  of  the  certain  success  of  the  allied 
powers,  a  mistake  not  unnatural." — Prof.  Smyth's  Lectures,  vol.  ii.,  p.  29;i. 

t  Hist.  Phil,  de  la  Rev.  de  Fr.,  par  Ant.  Fantin  Desodoards,  t.  ii.,  p.  45. 


2G6  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ClIAr.  XXVI. 

travagant  threats  filled  Europe.  It  was  every  where  assumed  that  only  a 
small  minority  of  the  French  people  were  opposed  to  the  Old  Kt'gime,  and 
that  the  mass  of  the  nation  would  at  once  arise  and  welcome  the  invading 
armies. 

AVith  this  terrific  storm  from  without  menacing  the  liberties  of  France,  a 
large  number  of  priests  who  had  refused  to  accept  the  Constitution  were 
plying  all  the  energies  of  the  most  potent  superstition  earth  has  ever  known 
to  rouse  the  ignorant  peasantry  against  civil  and  religious  liberty.  They 
were  told  that  eternal  damnation  was  their  inevitable  doom  if  they  were  not 
willing  to  lay  down  their  lives  in  defense  of  the  king  and  the  Pope ;  and 
that  eternal  blessedness  was  the  sure  inheritance  of  all  who  should  labor  and 
pray  for  holy  mother  Church.  The  queen,  it  was  well  known,  was  in  con- 
stant conference  with  the  enemy,  counseling,  encouraging,  and  aiding  with 
all  the  pecuniary  means  she  could  obtain  from  the  revenues  of  France.  The 
king  was  a  weak-minded,  fickle  man,  with  no  decision  of  his  own,  and  en- 
tirely at  the  disposal  of  those  who  surrounded  hiiji.  Being  quite  in  subjec- 
tion to  the  imperial  mind  of  the  queen,  he  delayed  adopting  any  vigorous 
measure  to  repel  the  approaching  foe,  thwarted  the  decrees  of  the  Assembly, 
and  allowed  his  own  enormous  salary  of  six  millions  of  dollars  to  be  appro- 
priated by  the  queen  and  her  counselors  to  hasten  the  march  of  foreign  in- 
vaders upon  Paris. 

In  the  very  palace  of  the  Tuileries  a  secret  committee  of  old  Royalists  were 
in  session  every  day,  planning  for  the  enemy,  informing  them  of  all  the 
movements  in  Paris,  advising  them  as  to  the  best  points  of  attack,  and  or- 
ganizing, in  different  parts  of  the  empire,  their  partisans  to  rise  in  civil  war 
the  moment  the  first  thunderings  of  hostile  artillery  should  be  heard  upon 
the  plains  of  France.  Here  surely  was  a  combination  of  wrong  and  outrage 
sufficient  to  drive  any  people  mad.* 

During  the  whole  month  of  July  the  interior  of  the  palace  was  the  abode 
of  terror.  The  inmates,  apprehensive  every  hour  of  attack,  had  no  repose 
by  day  or  night.  Almost  daily  there  was  an  alarm  that  the  mob  was  gath- 
ering. "  During  the  whole  month,"  writes  Madame  Campan,  "  I  was  never 
once  in  bed.  I  always  dreaded  some  night  attack.  One  morning,  about 
one  o'clock,  footsteps  were  heard  in  the  anteroom  of  the  queen's  chamber, 
and  then  a  violent  struggle  and  loud  outcries,  as  the  groom  of  the  chambers 
grasped  a  man  who  was  stealthily  approaching  with  a  dagger,  apparently  to 
assassinate  the  queen." 

*'  I  begin  to  foar,"  said  the  queen  one  day,  "  that  they  will  bring  the  king 
to  a  trial.  Mo  tliey  will  assassinate.  But  what  will  become  of  our  poor 
children?  If  they  assassinate  me,  so  much  the  better;  thc}^  will  rid  me  of 
an  existence  that  is  painful." 

"One  morning,  at  about  four  o'clock,  near  the  close  of  July,"  writes  ^fa- 
damo  Campan,  "  a  person  came  to  give  me  information  that  the  Faubourg 
St.  Antoinc  was  ]-ircpanng  to  march  against  the  palace.     We  knew  that  at 

*  "A  court  nppnrnntly  in  roncort  with  the  cnomy  resorted  to  no  means  for  nnpmontinp  the 
nrmieii  nnd  <'X(ifinp  the  nation,  hut,  on  the  eontrnry,  employed  the  veto  to  thwnrt  the  monsures 
of  the  Icjrislntive  Ixxly,  and  the  civil  list  (the  king's  salary)  to  secure  partisans  in  the  interior." — 
77iier»,  vol.  i.,  p.  280. 


1792.]  THE  THRONE  ASSAILED.  267 

least  an  hour  must  elapse  before  the  populace,  assembled  upon  the  site  of  the 
Bastille,  could  reach  the  Tuileries.  It  seemed  to  me  sufiicient  for  the  queen's 
safety  that  all  about  her  should  be  awakened.  I  went  softly  into  her  room. 
She  was  asleep.     I  did  not  awaken  her. 

"  The  king  had  been  awakened,  and  so  had  Madame  Elizabeth,  who  had 
gone  to  him.  The  queen,  yielding  to  the  weight  of  her  griefs,  slept  till  nine 
o'clock  on  that  day,  which  was  very  unusual  with  her.  The  king  had  al- 
ready been  to  know  whether  she  was  awake.  I  told  him  what  I  had  done, 
and  the  care  I  had  taken  not  to  disturb  her  rest.     He  thanked  me,  and  said, 

"  'I  was  awake,  and  so  was  the  whole  palace.  She  ran  no  risk.  I  am 
very  glad  to  see  her  take  a  little  rest.     Alas !  her  griefs  double  mine.' 

"  What  was  my  chagrin,  when  the  queen,  awaking  and  learning  what  had 
passed,  began  to  weep  bitterly  from  regret  at  not  having  been  called.  In 
vain  did  I  reiterate  that  it  was  only  a  false  alarm,  and  that  she  required  to 
have  her  strength  recruited. 

"  '  My  strength  is  not  exhausted,'  said  she ;  '  misfortune  gives  us  additional 
strength.  Elizabeth  was  with  the  king,  and  I  was  asleep !  I,  who  am  determ- 
ined to  perish  by  his  side.  I  am  his  wife.  I  will  not  suffer  him  to  incur  the 
smallest  risk  without  my  sharing  it.'  " 

The  queen  appears  to  have  understood  very  perfectly  the  character  of  her 
dejected,  spiritless,  long-suffering  husband.  "  The  king,"  said  she,  "is  not  a 
coward.  He  possesses  abundance  of  passive  courage,  but  he  is  overwhelmed 
by  an  awkward  shyness,  a  mistrust  of  himself,  which  proceeds  from  his  edu- 
cation as  much  as  from  his  disposition.  He  is  afraid  to  command,  and,  above 
all  things,  dreads  speaking  to  assembled  numbers.  He  lived  like  a  child, 
and  always  ill  at  ease,  under  the  eyes  of  Louis  XY.,  until  the  age  of  twenty- 
one.  This  constraint  confirmed  his  timidity.  Circumstanced  as  we  are,  a 
few  well-delivered  words  addressed  to  the  Parisians  would  multiply  the 
strength  of  our  party  a  hundred-fold.  He  will  not  utter  them.  What  can 
be  expected  from  those  addresses  to  the  people  which  he  has  been  advised 
to  post  up  ?  Nothing  but  fresh  outrages.  As  for  myself,  I  could  do  any 
thing,  and  would  appear  on  horseback  if  necessary ;  but,  if  I  really  were  to 
begin  to  act,  that  would  be  furnishing  arms  to  the  king's  enemies.  The  cry 
against  the  Austrian^  and  against  the  sway  of  a  female,  would  become  general 
in  France,  and,  moreover,  by  showing  myself  I  should  render  the  king  a 
mere  nothing.  A  queen  who  is  not  regent  ought,  under  these  circumstan- 
ces, to  remain  passive  or  to  die."* 

There  were  now  three  prominent  parties  in  France.  First,  the  Eoj-alists, 
with  the  queen  and  the  court,  controlling  the  ever- vacillating  king,  at  their 
head.  They  were  plotting,  through  foreign  armies  and  civil  war,  to  restore 
the  political  and  ecclesiastical  despotism  of  the  Old  Regime.  This  party 
would  have  been  utterly  powerless  but  for  the  aid  of  foreign  despots.  Sec- 
ond came  the  Constitutional  party,  with  La  Fayette  at  its  head.  The  king 
p'ofessed  to  belong  to  this  party,  and  at  times,  perhaps,  with  sincerity,  but, 
overruled  by  others,  he  conducted  with  a  degree  of  feebleness  and  fickleness 
which  amounted  to  treachery.  This  party  had  originally  embraced  nearly 
the  whole  nation.    Never  did  a  nobler  set  of  men  undertake  national  reform 

*  Madame  Campan,  vol.  ii.,  p.  230. 


268  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXVI. 

than  were  the  leaders  of  the  French  Eevolution.  Thej  sought  only  the 
happiness  of  France,  were  anxious  for  peace  with  all  nations,  were  decidedly 
conservative  in  their  views.  They  had  no  desire  to  overthrow  the  French 
monarchy,  but  wished  only  to  limit  that  monarchy  by  a  Constitution  which 
should  secure  to  the  nation  civil  and  religious  liberty. 

But  the  Constitutional  party  was  now  daily  growing  weaker,  simply  be- 
cause its  best  friends  saw  that  it  was  impossible  to  maintain  the  Constitution 
while  the  king  himself  was  co-operating  with  foreign  armies  for  its  over- 
throw. Why  should  the  people  sustain  a  king,  and  furnish  him  with  a 
salary  of  live  millions  of  dollars  a  year,  only  to  enable  him  to  overthrow  the 
Constitution  and  reinstate  the  rejected  despotism?  Thus  were  thousands  of 
the  purest  men  in  France  driven  with  great  reluctance  to  the  conviction 
that  constitutional  liberty  could  only  be  preserved  by  dethroning  the  king 
and  establishing  a  republic.  They  were  originally  decidedly  in  favor  of  a 
constitutional  monarchy.  They  felt  that  the  transition  was  altogether  too 
great  and  too  sudden  from  utter  despotism  to  republican  freedom.  The 
vast  mass  of  the  peasant  population  in  France  could  neither  read  nor  write. 
They  were  totally  unacquainted  with  the  forms  of  popular  government. 
They  were  as  ignorant  as  children,  and  almost  entirely  under  the  tutelage 
of  the  priests,  to  whom  they  believed  that  the  keys  of  heaven  and  of  hell 
had  been  intrusted.  The  establishment  of  republican  forms  would  render 
France  still  more  obnoxious  to  surrounding  monarchies,  and  therefore  they 
had  wished  to  maintain  the  monarchy,  and  they  took  the  British  Constitu- 
tion and  not  the  American  republic  as  their  model,  wishing,  however,  to 
infuse  more  of  the  popular  element  into  their  Constitution  than  has  been 
admitted  into  the  aristocratic  institutions  of  England. 

But  now  they  found,  to  their  surprise  and  grief,  that  all  Europe  was  com- 
bining against  their  liberties,  and  that  the  king,  instead  of  being  grateful  that 
his  throne  was  preserved  to  him,  was  lamenting  his  loss  of  despotic  power, 
and  was  co-operating  with  combined  Eurojoc  for  the  re-enslavement  of 
France.  Tins  left  the  friends  of  liberty  no  alternative.  They  must  cither 
hold  out  their  hands  to  have  the  irons  riveted  upon  them  anew,  or  they 
must  dethrone  the  king,  rouse  the  nation  to  repel  invasion,  and  attempt  the 
fearful  experiment  of  a  republican  government  with  a  nation  turbulent,  un- 
enlightened, and  totally  unaccustomed  to  self-control.  In  the  old  despotism 
there  was  no  hope.  It  presented  but  poverty,  chains,  and  despair.  In  re- 
l)ul)licanism,  with  all  its  perils,  there  was  at  least  hope.  Ilencc  arose  repub- 
licanism. It  was  the  child  of  necessity.  In  the  Constituent  Assembly  not 
an  individual  was  to  be  found  who  advocated  a  repi-iblic*  But  after  the 
flight  of  the  king  to  Varenncs,  republican  sentiments,  as  the  only  hope  of 
the  nation,  rapidly  gained  ground,  and  at  the  very  commencement  of  the 
Legislative  Assembly  we  sec  that  a  republican  party  is  already  organized. 
From  the  beginning  there  were  two  divisions  of  this  party— the  conservative 

•  "It  iK'comort  eviilcnt  that  n  republic  was  desinnl  only  from  despair  of  the  monnrchy,  that  it 
never  was  a  fixed  fact,  and  (hat,  on  the  very  eve  of  attaining  it,  those  who  were  accused  of  Imving 
long  paved  the  way  to  it,  would  not  sacrifice  tlie  ].uhlic  weal  for  its  sake,  but  would  have  consented 
to  II  conutitutiouul  mouurchy,  if  it  were  accompuuiud  with  suflicieut  safecuards."— TVji'crs,  vol.  i., 
I).  3()».  '' 


\ 


1792.]  THE  THKONE  ASSAILED.  269 

republicans,  called  Girondists,  because  their  leaders  were  from  tbe  depart- 
ment of  the  Gironde ;  and  the  radical  democrats,  called  Jacobins  from  the 
hall  where  the  club  held  its  meeting. 

All  France  was  now  in  a  state  of  alarm.  The  Assembly  passed  a  very 
solemn  decree  announcing  that  the  country  is  in  danger.  It  declared  its 
sitting  to  be  permanent,  that  the  king  might  not  dissolve  it.  All  the  citizens 
-were  required  to  give  up  their  arms  that  they  might  be  suitably  distributed 
to  the  defenders  of  the  country.  Every  man,  old  and  young,  capable  of 
bearing  arms  was  ordered  to  be  enrolled  in  the  National  Guards  for  the  pub- 
lic defense.  M.  Yergniaud,  the  leader  of  the  Girondists,  a  man  of  exalted 
virtue  and  of  marvelous  powers  of  eloquence,  concluded  a  speech  which 
roused  the  enthusiasm  of  the  whole  Assembly  by  proposing  a  firm  but  re- 
spectful message  to  Louis  XVI.,  which  should  oblige  him  to  choose  between 
France  and  foreigners,  and  which  should  teach  him  that  the  French  were 
resolved  to  perish  or  triumph  with  the  Constitution. 

"It  is  in  the  name  of  the  king,^^  said  Yergniaud,  "that  the  French  princes 
have  endeavored  to  raise  up  Europe  against  us.  It  is  to  avenge  the  dignity 
of  the  king  that  the  treaty  of  Pilnitz  has  been  concluded.  It  is  to  come  to 
the  aid  of  the  king  that  the  sovereign  of  Hungary  and  Bohemia  makes  war 
upon  us,  and  that  Prussia  is  marching  toward  our  frontiers.  Now,  I  read  in 
the  Constitution, 

"  '  If  the  king  puts  himself  at  the  head  of  an  army  and  directs  its  forces 
against  the  nation,  or  if  he  does  not  oppose  by  a  formal  act  an  enterprise  of 
this  kind,  that  may  be  executed  in  his  name,  he  shall  be  considered  as  hav- 
ing abdicated  royalty.' 

"What  is  a  formal  act  of  opposition  ?  If  one  hundred  thousand  Austrians 
were  marching  toward  Flanders,  and  one  hundred  thousand  Prussians  toward 
Alsace,  and  the  king  were  to  oppose  to  them  ten  or  twenty  thousand  men, 
would  he  have  done  a  formal  act  of  opposition  ?  If  the  king,  whose  duty  it  is  to 
notify  us  of  imminent  hostilities,  apprised  of  the  movements  of  the  Prussian 
army,  were  not  to  communicate  any  information  upon  the  subject  to  the  Na- 
tional Assembly ;  if  a  camp  of  reserve  necessary  for  stopping  the  progress  of 
the  enemy  into  the  interior  were  j)roposed,  and  the  king  were  to  substitute  in 
its  stead  an  uncertain  plan  which  it  would  take  a  long  time  to  execute ;  if 
the  king  were  to  leave  the  command  of  an  army  to  an  intriguing  general 
(La  Fayette)  of  whom  the  nation  was  suspicious.  If  another  general  (Luck- 
ner)  familiar  with  victory  were  to  demand  a  re-enforcement,  and  the  king 
were  by  a  refusal  to  say  to  him,  I  forbid  thee  to  conquer,  could  it  be  asserted 
that  the  king  had  performed  a  formal  act  of  opposition. 

"  If  while  France  were  swimming  in  blood  the  king  were  to  say  to  you, 
'  It  is  true  that  the  enemies  pretend  to  be  acting  for  me,  for  my  dignity,  for 
my  rights,  but  I  have  proved  that  I  am  not  the  accomplice.  I  have  sent 
armies  into  the  field ;  these  armies  were  too  weak,  but  the  Constitution  does 
not  fix  the  degree  of  their  force.  I  have  assembled  them  too  late ;  but  the 
Constitution  does  not  fix  the  time  for  collecting  them.  I  have  stopped  a 
general  who  was  on  the  point  of  conquering,  but  the  Constitution  does  not 
order  victories.  I  have  had  ministers  who  deceived  the  Assembly  and  dis- 
organized the  government,  but  their  appointment  belonged  to  me.     The  As- 


270  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXXL 

sembly  ba^  passed  useful  decrees  which  I  have  not  sanctioned,  but  I  had  a 
right  to  act  so.  I  have  done  all  that  the  Constitution  enjoined  me.  It  is 
therefore  impossible  to  doubt  my  fidelity  to  it.' 

"  If  the  king  were  to  hold  this  language  would  you  not  have  a  right  to 
reply,  '  0  king,  who,  like  Lysander,  the  tyrant,  have  believed  that  truth  was 
not  worth  more  than  falsehood,  who  have  feigned  a  love  for  the  laws,  mere- 
ly tQ  preserve  the  power  which  enabled  you  to  defy  them — was  it  defending 
us  to  oppose  to  the  foreign  soldiers  forces  whose  inferiority  left  not  even  un- 
certainty as  to  their  defeat  ?  Was  it  defending  us  to  thwart  plans  tending 
to  fortify  the  interior?  "Was  it  defending  us  not  to  check  a  general  who 
violated  the  Constitution,  but  to  enchain  the  courage  of  those  who  were 
serving  it  ?  No !  no !  man,  in  whom  the  generosity  of  the  French  has  ex- 
cited no  corresponding  feeling,  insensible  to  every  thing  but  the  love  of  des- 
potism, you  are  henceforth  nothing  to  that  Constitution  which  you  have  so 
unworthily  violated,  nothing  to  that  people  which  you  have  so  basely  be- 
trayed.' " 

This  was  the  first  time  any  one  had  ventured  to  speak  in  the  Assembly  of 
the  forfeiture  of  the  crown,  though  it  was  a  common  topic  in  the  journals 
and  in  the  streets.  The  speech  of  Vergniaud  was  received  with  vehement 
applause.  The  king,  alarmed,  immediately  sent  a  message  to  the  Assembly 
informing  them  that  Prussia  had  allied  her  troops  with  those  of  Austria  in 
their  march  upon  France.  This  message,  thus  tardily  extorted,  was  received 
by  the  Assembly  with  a  smile  of  contempt. 

It  was  now  manifest,  beyond  all  dispute,  that  the  foe  of  French  liberty 
most  to  be  dreaded  was  the  king  and  the  court.  M.  Brissot,  who  had  been 
the  bosom  friend  and  the  ardent  eulogist  of  La  Fayette,  could  no  longer  sus- 
tain the  king.  Ascending  the  tribune  he  gave  bold  utterance  to  the  senti- 
ment of  the  nation. 

"  Our  peril,"  said  he,  "  exceeds  all  that  past  ages  have  witnessed.  The 
country  is  in  danger,  not  because  we  are  in  want  of  troops — not  because  those 
troops  want  courage.  No!  it  is  in  danger  because  its  force  is  paralyzed. 
And  who  has  paralyzed  it.  A  man — 07ie  man,  the  man  whom  the  Constitu- 
tion has  made  its  chief,  and  whom  perfidious  advisers  have  made  its  foe. 
You  are  told  to  fear  the  Kings  of  Prussia  and  Hungar}'- ;  I  say  the  chief 
force  of  those  kings  is  at  the  court,  and  it  is  there  we  must  first  conquer  them. 
They  tell  you  to  strike  at  the  dissentient  priests.  I  tell  you  to  strike  at  the 
Tuileries,  and  fell  all  the  priests  with  a  single  blow.  You  are  told  to  perse- 
cute all  fiictious  and  intriguing  conspirators.  They  will  all  disappear  if  you 
knock  loud  enough  at  the  door  of  the  Cabinet  of  the  Tuileries  ;  for  that  cabin- 
et is  the  point  to  which  all  these  threads  tend,  where  every  scheme  is  j>lottcd, 
and  whence  every  impulse  proceeds.  This  is  the  secret  of  our  j^osition ; 
this  is  the  source  of  the  evil,  and  here  the  remedy  must  be  applied."* 

•  M.  Brisfiot  W08  n  lawyer  of  considcrnblc  litornry  distinction,  who,  when  but  twentj'  ycnra  of 
(IRC,  lind  heon  imprisoned  in  the  Biistille  for  some  of  his  politienl  WTitinps.  He  wns  n  pnssionnte 
adnnrer  of  tlie  AmcriciuiH,  nnd  desjinirinK,  in  consequence  of  the  fickleness  or  treachery  of  the 
kinp,  of  ft  eonstitutionul  moniirchy,  endeavored  to  secure  for  France  a  republic.  Al)out  a  year 
fnmi  the  time  of  tiie  above  siieech  he  perished  with  the  rest  uf  the  Giroudista  upon  tlic  scalVol'd.— 
Hioijraphe  Mode  rue. 


1792.]  THE  THKONE  DEMOLISHED.  271 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

THE  THRONE  DEMOLISHED. 

The  Country  proclaimed  in  Danger. — Plan  of  La  Fayette  for  the  Safety  of  the  Eoyal  Family. — 
Measures  of  the  Court. — Celebration  of  the  Demolition  of  the  Bastille. — Movement  of  the  Allied 
Army. — Conflicting  Plans  of  the  People. — Letter  of  the  Girondists  to  the  King. — Manifesto  of 
the  Duke  of  Brunswick. — Unpopularity  of  La  Fayette. — The  Attack  upon  the  Tuileries,  Aug. 
10th. — The  Koyal  Family  take  Refuge  in  the  Assembly. 

The  danger  to  whicli  the  country  was  exposed  Lad  now  united  Constitu- 
tionalists and  Republicans,  or  rather  had  compelled  most  of  the  Constitu- 
tionalists to  become  Republicans.  A  patriotic  bishop,  whose  soul  was  glow- 
ing with  the  spirit  of  true  Christian  fraternity,  addressed  the  Assembly  in  an 
appeal  so  moving,  that,  like  reconciled  brothers,  the  two  parties  rushed  into 
each  other's  arms  to  unite  in  the  defense  of  that  liberty  which  was  equally 
dear  to  them  all. 

On  the  11th  of  July  the  solemn  proclamation  was  made  with  great  pomp 
through  the  streets  of  Paris  and  of  France,  that  the  country  was  in  danger. 
Minute  guns  were  fired  all  the  day.  The  bells  tolled,  and  the  reveille  was 
beat  in  all  quarters  of  the  city  summoning  the  National  Guard  to  their  posts. 
A  cavalcade  of  horse  paraded  the  streets  with  a  large  banner  containing  the 
inscription,  Citizens^  the  country  is  in  danger.  At  all  the  principal  places 
the  cortege  halted  and  the  legislative  decree  was  read.  Rendezvous  were 
established  in  all  parts  of  the  city  for  the  enlistment  of  volunteers.  Unpar- 
alleled enthusiasm  pervaded  all  classes.  In  Paris  alone  fifteen  thousand 
were  enrolled  the  first  day. 

Petitions  were  poured  in  upon  the  Assembly  from  all  parts  of  the  empire 
declaring  that  the  king  had  forfeited  the  crown,  and  demanding  his  dethrone- 
ment. This  sudden  change,  these  bold  utterances,  threw  the  court  into  con- 
sternation. The  king's  life  now  was  in  imminent  peril,  and  he  resolved  if 
possible  to  effect  his  escape.  Several  plans  were  suggested  which  seemed 
to  him,  with  his  constitutional  feebleness  of  purpose,  too  hazardous  to  be  un- 
dertaken. La  Fayette,  with  generous  credulity,  still  tried  to  beheve  the 
king  sincere  in  his  acceptance  of  constitutional  liberty,  and  he  proposed  a 
plan  which  woidd  have  saved  the  king  and  would  have  saved  France  had 
there  been  a  particle  of  sincerity  in  the  bosom  of  the  monarch.  It  was  most 
noble  in  La  Fayette  thus  to  forget  the  insults  he  had  received  from  the  court, 
and  to  peril  his  life  in  the  endeavor  to  save  a  family  who  had  only  loaded 
him  with  injuries.  His  plan,  boldly  conceived,  was  as  patriotic  as  it  was 
humane,  and  needed  but  smcerity  on  the  part  of  the  king  to  secure  its  tri- 
umphant execution.  It  was  an  amiable  weakness  on  the  part  of  La  Fayette 
still  to  believe  that  the  king  could  by  any  possibility  be  led  to  espouse  the 
Revolution.     His  proposition  was  briefly  this  : 

"  Greneral  Luckner  and  I,"  said  he  to  the  king,  "  will  come  to  Paris  to  at- 
tend the  celebration  of  the  demolition  of  the  Bastille  on  the  14th  of  July. 


272 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


[Chap.  XXVU. 


TlIE  COUNTRY  mOOLAIMED   IN   DANOEE. 


In  company  with  us,  the  next  day,  tlic  king  -witli  his  family  shall  visit  Com- 
picgru',  fifty  miles  north  of  Paris.  The  people  will  have  snihcient  confulenoe 
in  us  to  make  no  opposition.  Should  there  be  opposition  we  will  have  a 
suflieient  force  of  dragoons  at  hand  to  strike  by  surprise  and  release  you. 
Ten  squadrons  of  horse-artillery  shall  there  receive  the  monarch  and  con- 
duct him  to  the  army  on  the  frontiers.  The  king  shall  then  issue  a  decided 
j)roclamation  forbidding  his  brothers  and  the  emigrants  to  advance  another 
!iiep  toward  the  invasion  of  France,  declaring,  in  terms  which  can  not  be 
misinterpreted,  his  detiTmination  to  maintain  the  Constitution,  and  announc- 
ing his  readiness  to  place  himself  at  the  head  of  the  army  to  repel  the  enemy. 


1792.]  THE  THRONE  DEMOLISHED.  273 

This  decisive  measure  will  satisfy  France  that  the  king  is  its  friend  not  its 
foe.  The  allies  can  make  no  headway  against  France  united  under  its  mon- 
arch. The  king  can  then  return  triumphant  to  Paris,  amid  the  universal 
acclamations  of  the  people,  a  constitutional  monarch  beloved  and  revered  by 
his  subjects."* 

This  was  the  wisest  course  which,  under  the  circumstances,  could  possibly 
have  been  pursued.  It  was  constitutional.  It  would  have  been  the  salva- 
tion of  the  king  and  of  France.  Many  of  the  king's  personal  friends  entreat- 
ed him,  with  tears,  to  repose  confidence  in  La  Fayette,  and  to  comply  with 
the  counsels  of  the  only  man  who  could  rescue  him  from  destruction.  But 
the  fickle-minded  king  was  now  in  the  hands  of  the  queen  and  the  courtiers, 
and  was  guided  at  their  pleasure.  All  their  hopes  were  founded  in  the  re- 
establishment  of  despotism  by  foreign  invasion.  The  generous  plan  of  La 
Fayette  was  rejected  with  a  cold  and  almost  insulting  repulse. 

"  The  best  advice,"  replied  the  king,  "  which  can  be  given  to  La  Fayette 
is  to  continue  to  serve  as  a  bugbear  to  the  factions  by  the  able  performance 
of  his  duty  as  a  general." 

The  queen  was  so  confident  that  in  a  few  weeks  the  allied  armies  would 
be  in  Paris,  and  that  any  acts  of  disrespect  on  the  part  of  the  people  would 
only  tend  to  hasten  their  march,  that  when  Colombe,  the  aid-de-camp  of  La 
Fayette,  remonstrated  against  the  infatuation  of  so  fatal  a  decision,  she  re- 
plied, "We  are  much  obliged  to  your  general  for  his  offer,  but  the  best 
thing  which  could  happen  to  us  would  be  to  be  confined  for  two  months 
in  a  tower," 

When  La  Fayette  was  thus  periling  his  life  to  save  the  royal  family  he 
knew  that,  by  the  queen's  orders,  pamphlets  filled  with  calumny  were  com- 
posed against  him,  and  were  paid  for  out  of  the  king's  salary.f 

The  court  was  secretly  and  very  energetically  recruiting  defenders  for  the 
approaching  crisis.  They  had  assembled  at  the  Tuileries  a  regiment  of  Swiss 
mercenaries,  amounting  to  about  a  thousand  men,  who,  under  rigid  military 
discipline,  would  be  faithful  to  the  king.  A  large  number  of  general  and 
subaltern  officers,  strong  royalists,  w^ere  provided  with  lodgings  in  Paris, 
awaiting  any  emergence.  Several  hundred  royalist  gentlemen  from  the 
provinces,  in  chivalrous  devotion  to  the  monarchy,  were  residing  in  hotels 
near  the  Tuileries,  always  provided  with  concealed  weapons,  and  with  cards 
which  gave  them  admission  at  any  hour  into  the  palace.  Secret  bodies  of 
loyalists  were  organized  in  the  city,  who  were  also  ready  to  rush,  at  a  given 

*  La  Favette's  Memoirs. 

''  M.  deLa  Fayette  seemed  not  to  have  been  quite  discouraged  by  the  ill-success  of  his  former 
embassy;  for  on  the  10th  of  July  M.  de  Lally  came  to  me  with  a  long  letter  written  by  M.  La 
Fayette  from  his  army,  in  which  he  drew  a  plan,  ready  as  he  said,  for  execution,  to  open  the  way 
for  the  king  through  "his  enemies,  and  to  establish  him  in  safety  either  in  Compiegne  or  in  the 
north  part  of  France,  surrounded  by  his  constitutional  guards  and  his  faithful  &vmy .''—Bertrand 
de  Moleville. 

t  "That  there  should  be  no  more  sympathy,"  says  Professor  Smyth,  "expressed  by  the  king 
or  the  Royalists  ever  after,  with  the  elevated  nature  of  the  principles  of  La  Fayette  or  the  steadiness 
of  his  loyalty,  whenever  he  saw,  as  he  thought,  the  king  in  danger,  is  quite  intolerable ;  and  there 
are  no  occasions  on  which  the  royal  party  appear  to  so  little  advantage  as  when  it  is  desirable  that 
they  should  show  some  little  candor,  some  common  justice  to  La  Fayette."— Zerf«res  on  French  Rev- 
olution, vol.  ii.,  p.  298. 

s 


274 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


[Chap.  XXVII. 

signal,  to  the  defense  of  the  inmates  of  the  Tuileries.  The  servants  in  the 
chateaux  were  very  numerous,  and  were  all  picked  men.  There  were  also 
in  garrison  in  Paris  ten  thousand  troops  of  the  line  who  were  devoted  to  the 
king. 

With  such  resources  immediately  at  hand,  and  with  nearly  all  the  mon- 
archies of  Europe  in  alliance  to  march  to  their  rescue,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  the  king  and  queen  should  have  felt  emboldened  to  brave  the  perils 
which  surrounded  them.*  The  Royalists  were  exultant,  and  already,  in  the 
provinces  of  La  Vendee  and  on  the  Ehone,  they  had  unfurled  the  white  ban- 
ner of  the  Bourbons,  were  rallying  around  it  by  thousands,  and  had  com- 
menced the  slaughter  of  the  patriots  who,  in  these  provinces,  were  in  the 
minority. 

Such  was  the  state  of  aflfairs  when  the  14th  of  July  arrived,  the  day  for 
the  great  celebration  of  the  demolition  of  the  Bastille.     The  king  and  queen 


8   OMINO   TOR   nARTII.I.r. 

Hisiorv  (if  the  GironUists,  Lamartino,  vol.  ii.,  p.  30. 


1792.]  THE  THRONE  DEMOLISHED.  275 

could  not  avoid  participating  in  the  ceremonies,  though  it  was  greatly  feared 
that  attempts  might  be  made  for  their  assassination.  A  breast-plate,  in  the 
form  of  an  under  waistcoat,  was  secretly  made  for  the  king,  consisting  of 
fifteen  folds  of  Italian  silk,  strongly  quilted,  which  was  found,  upon  trial,  to 
be  proof  against  dagger  or  bullet.  Madame  Campan  wore  it  for  three  days 
before  an  opportunity  could  be  found  for  the  king  to  try  it  on  unperceived. 
The  king,  as  he  drew  it  on,  said, 

"  It  is  to  satisfy  the  queen  that  I  submit  to  this  inconvenience." 

A  corset  of  similar  material  was  also  prepared  for  the  queen.  She,  how- 
ever, refused  to  wear  it,  saying,  "  If  the  rebels  assassinate  me  it  will  be  a 
most  happy  event.  It  will  release  me  from  the  most  sorrowful  existence, 
and  may  save  from  a  cruel  death  the  rest  of  the  family." 

The  Field  of  Mars  was  the  site  for  the  festival.  Eighty -three  gorgeous 
tents  were  reared,  representing  the  eighty-three  departments  of  France.  Be- 
fore each  of  these  was  planted  a  tree  of  liberty,  from  the  tops  of  which  waved 
the  tricolored  banner.  On  one  side  of  this  vast  parade-ground  there  was  an 
immense  tree  planted,  called  the  tree  of  feudalism.  Its  boughs  were  laden 
with  memorials  of  ancient  pride  and  oppression — blue  ribbons,  tiaras,  cardi- 
nals' hats,  St.  Peter's  keys,  ermine,  mantles,  titles  of  nobility,  escutcheons, 
coats  of  arms,  etc.  It  was  in  the  programme  of  the  day  that  the  king,  after 
taking  anew  the  oath  of  fidelity  to  the  Constitution,  was  to  set  fire  to  the 
tree  of  feudalism  with  all  its  burden  of  hoary  abuses. 

The  king  and  royal  family  joined  the  procession  at  the  Tuileries,  and 
with  saddened  hearts  and  melancholy  countenances  performed  their  part  in 
the  ceremonies.  "  The  expression  of  the  queen's  countenance,"  says  Madame 
de  Stael,  "  on  this  day  will  never  be  effaced  from  my  remembrance.  Her 
eyes  were  swollen  with  tears,  and  the  splendor  of  her  dress  and  the  dignity 
of  her  deportment  formed  a  striking  contrast  with  the  train  that  surrounded 
her." 

When  the  procession  arrived  at  the  Field  of  Mars,  where  an  immense 
concourse  was  assembled,  the  queen  took  her  station  upon  a  balcony  which 
was  provided  for  her,  while  the  king  was  conducted  slowly  through  the  al- 
most impenetrable  throng  to  the  altar  where  the  oath  was  to  be  administered. 
The  queen  narrowly  and  anxiously  watched  his  progress  with  a  glass.  In 
ascending  the  altar  the  monarch  took  a  false  step,  and  seemed  to  fall.  The 
queen,  thinking  he  had  been  struck  by  a  dagger,  uttered  a  shriek  of  terror, 
which  pierced  the  hearts  of  all  around  her.  The  king,  however,  ascended 
the  altar,  and  took  the  oath. 

The  people  wished  him  then  to  set  fire  to  the  feudal  tree.  But  he  de- 
clined, very  pertinently  remarking  that  there  was  no  longer  any  feudalism 
in  France.  Some  of  the  deputies  of  the  Assembly  then  lighted  the  pile,  and 
as  it  was  wreathed  in  flames  the  shoutings  of  the  multitude  testified  their 
joy.  The  partisans  of  the  king  succeeded  in  raising  a  few  shouts  of  Vive  le 
Roi,  which  lighted  up  a  momentary  smile  upon  the  wan  face  of  the  king. 
But  these  were  the  last  flickering  gleams  of  joy.  The  royal  family  returned 
in  deepest  dejection  to  the  palace.  They  were  conscious  that  they  had 
but  performed  the  part  of  captives  in  gracing  a  triumph,  and  they  never 
again  appeared  in  the  streets  of  Paris  until  they  were  led  to  their  execution. 


276 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


[Chap.  XXVII. 

The  alarming  decree  of  the  Assembly  that  the  country  was  in  danger,  and 
the  call  for  every  man  to  arm,  had  thrown  all  France  into  commotion.  The 
restless,  violent,  and  irresponsible  are  ever  the  first  to  volunteer  for  war. 
These  were  rapidly  organized  in  the  departments  into  regiments  and  battal- 
ions, and  sent  on  to  Paris.  Thus,  notwithstanding  the  veto  of  the  king,  an 
immense  force  was  fast  gathering  in  the  capital,  and  a  force  who  felt  that  the 
king  himself  was  the  secret  treacherous  foe  from  whom  they  had  the  most 
to  fear.  The  Assembly,  dreading  conspiracy  at  home  more  than  open  war 
from  abroad,  now  sent  the  king's  troops,  upon  whose  fidelity  to  the  nation 
they  could  not  rely,  to  the  frontiers.  The  court  opposed  this  measure,  as 
they  did  not  wish  to  strengthen  even  the  feeble  resistance  which  they  sup- 
posed the  alUes  would  have  to  encounter,  and  also  wished  to  retain  these 
troops  for  their  own  protection  against  any  desperate  insurrection  of  the  peo- 
ple. The  king  consequently  wished  to  interpose  his  veto,  but  was  advised 
that  he  could  not  safely  adopt  that  measure  in  the  then  exasperated  state  of 
the  public  mind.  The  removal  of  these  troops  very  decidedly  weakened 
the  strength  of  the  Royalists  in  Paris. 

Such  was  the  state  of  affairs  on  the  28th  of  July,  when  the  allied  army, 
amounting  in  its  three  great  divisions  to  one  hundred  and  thirty-eight  thou- 
sand men,  commenced  its  march  upon  France. 

The  Duke  of  Brunswick  was  to  pass  the  Rhine  at  Coblentz,  ascend  the 
left  bank  of  the  Moselle,  and  march  uj)on  Paris  by  the  route  of  Longwy, 


TIIK   I-BUBBIAN8  OBOBSWO  TlIK  mONTlERS  OF  KOANCE. 


Verdun,  and  Chalons.     His  immense  force  of  cavalry,  infantry,  and  artil- 
lery, with  ita  enormous  array  of  heavy  guns  and  its  long  lines  of  baggage 


1792.]  THE  THRONE  DEMOLISHED.  277 

and  munition  wagons,  covered  a  space  of  forty  miles.  The  Prince  of  Hohen- 
lohe,  marching  in  a  parallel  line  some  twenty  miles  on  his  left,  led  a  division 
of  the  emigrants  and  the  Hessian  troops.  His  route  led  him  through  Thion- 
ville  and  Metz.  The  Count  de  Clairfayt,  an  Austrian  field-marshal,  who 
has  been  esteemed  the  ablest  general  opposed  to  the  French  during  the  Rev- 
olutionary war,  conducted  the  Austrian  troops  and  another  division  of  the 
emigrants  along  other  parallel  roads  upon  the  right,  to  fall  upon  La  Fayette, 
who  was  stationed  before  Sedan  and  Mezieres.  It  was  supposed  that  he 
would  easily  scatter  the  feeble  forces  which  Louis  XVI.  had  permitted  to 
be  stationed  there ;  and  then  he  was  to  press  rapidly  upon  Paris  by  Rheims 
and  Soissons.* 

The  friends  of  liberty  now  saw  no  possible  way  of  rescuing  France  from 
its  peril  and  of  saving  themselves  from  the  scaffold,  but  by  wresting  the  ex- 
ecutive power  from  the  king  and  the  court,  who  were  in  co-operation  with 
the  foe.  This  could  only  be  done  by  a  revolution^  for  the  Constitution  con- 
ferred no  right  upon  the  Assembly  to  dethrone  the  king.  The  Girondists 
or  moderate  Repubhcans,  detesting  the  Jacobins  and  appalled  in  view  of  the 
anarchy  which  would  ensue  from  arming  the  mob  of  Paris,  wished  to  have 
the  Assembly  usurp  the  power  and  dethrone  the  king.  The  Jacobins,  who 
hoped  to  ride  into  authority  upon  the  waves  of  popular  tumult,  deliberately 
resolved  to  demolish  the  throne  by  hurling  against  it  the  infuriate  masses 
of  the  people.  It  was  calling  into  action  the  terrible  energies  of  the  earth- 
quake and  the  tornado,  knowing  that  their  ravages,  once  commenced,  could 
be  arrested  by  no  earthly  power. 

The  plan  first  formed  was  to  rouse  the  people  in  resistless  numbers,  march 
upon  the  Tuileries,  take  the  king  a  prisoner,  and  hold  him  in  the  Castle  of 
Yincennes  as  a  hostage  for  the  good  conduct  of  the  emigrants  and  the  allies. 
The  appointed  day  came,  and  Paris  was  thrown  into  a  state  of  terrible  con- 
fusion. But  the  court  had  been  admonished  of  the  movement.  The  palace 
was  strongly  defended,  and  in  consequence  of  some  misunderstanding  it  was 
found  that  there  was  not  sufficient  concert  of  action  to  attempt  the  enterprise. 

A  new  scheme  was  now  formed,  energetic  and  well-adapted  to  the  effectu- 
al accomj^lishment  of  its  purpose.  At  the  ringing  of  the  tocsin  forty  thou- 
sand men  were  to  be  marshaled  in  the  faubourg  St.  Antoine.  Another  im- 
mense gathering  of  the  populace  was  to  rally  in  the  faubourg  St.  Marceau. 
All  the  troops  in  the  metropolis  from  the  provinces  were  to  be  arrayed  at 
the  encampment  of  the  Marseilles  battalion.  They  were  then  to  march  si- 
multaneously to  the  palace,  fill  the  garden  and  the  court  of  the  Carrousel,  and 
invest  the  Tuileries  on  all  sides.  Here  they  were  to  encamp  with  all  the 
enginery  of  war,  and  fortify  their  position  by  ditches,  barricades,  and  re- 
doubts. No  blood  was  to  be  shed.  There  was  to  be  no  assault  upon  the 
palace,  and  no  forcible  entry.  The  king  was  to  be  blockaded,  and  the  As- 
sembly was  to  be  informed  that  the  populace  would  not  lay  down  their  arms 
until  the  king  was  dethroned,  and  the  Legislature  had  adopted  measures  to 

*  "Russia  and  England  secretly  approved  the  attacks  of  the  European  leatrue,  ■without  as  yet 
co-operating  with  it." — Mirjnet,  p.  142.  The  British  government  were  at  this  time  restrained  from 
active  measures  by  the  British  people,  the  great  mass  of  whom  sympathized  with  the  French  in 
their  struggle  for  liberty. 


278  TUE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXVII. 

secure  the  safety  of  the  count^3^*  In  this  plan  there  was  something  gener- 
ous and  sublime.  It  endeavored  to  guard  carefully  against  disorder,  pillage, 
and  blood.  It  was  the  majestic  movement  of  the  people  rising  in  self  de- 
fense against  its  own  executive  in  combination  with  foreign  foes.  Barba- 
roux,  the  leader  of  the  Marseillese,  sketches  this  plan  in  pencil.  It  was  copied 
by  Fournier,  and  adopted  by  Danton  and  Santerre.f 

Several  of  the  leaders  of  the  Girondists,  anxious  to  avert  the  fearful  crisis 
now  impending,  wrote  a  noble  letter  to  the  king  containing  considerations 
just  and  weighty,  which  ought  to  have  influenced  him  to  corresponding 
action.  The  letter  was  written  by  Vergniaud,  Gaudet,  and  Gensonne,  three 
of  the  brightest  ornaments  of  the  Legislative  Assembly. 

"  It  ought  not  to  be  dissembled,"  said  these  men  to  the  king,  "  that  it  is 
the  conduct  of  the  executive  power  that  is  the  immediate  cause  of  all  the 
evils  with  which  France  is  afflicted,  and  of  the  dangers  with  which  the  throne 
is  surrounded.  They  deceive  the  king  who  would  lead  him  to  suppose  that 
it  is  the  effervesence  of  the  clubs,  the  manoeuvres  of  particular  agitators  and 
powerful  factions  that  have  occasioned  and  continued  those  disorderly  move- 
ments, of  which  every  day  increases  the  violence,  and  of  which  no  one  can 
calculate  the  consequences.  Thus  to  suppose  is  to  find  the  cause  of  the  evil 
in  what  are  only  the  symptoms.  The  only  way  to  establish  the  public  tran- 
quillity is  for  the  king  to  surround  himself  with  the  confidence  of  his  people. 
This  can  only  be  done  by  declaring,  in  the  most  solemn  manner,  that  he 
will  receive  no  augmentation  of  his  power  that  shall  not  be  freely  and  regu- 
larly offered  him  by  the  French  nation  without  the  assistance  or  interference 
of  any  foreign  powers. 

"What  would  be,  perhaps,  sufficient  at  once  to  re-establish  confidence 
would  be  for  the  king  to  make  the  coalesced  powers  acknowledge  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  French  nation,  cease  from  all  farther  hostilities,  and  with- 
draw the  troops  that  menace  our  frontiers.  It  is  impossible  that  a  very 
great  part  of  the  nation  should  not  be  persuaded  that  the  king  has  it  in  his 
power  to  put  an  end  to  the  coalition ;  and  while  that  coalition  continues  and 
places  the  public  liberty  in  a  state  of  peril,  it  is  in  vain  to  flatter  the  king 
that  confidence  can  revive." 

The  court  regarded  this  letter  as  insolent,  and  the  king  returned  an  an- 
swer which  declared  that  he  should  pay  no  attention  whatever  to  its  sugges- 
tions. 

On  the  30th  of  July  the  troops  from  Marseilles  had  arrived,  five  hundred 
III  number,  composed  of  the  most  fiery  and  turbulent  spirits  of  the  South. 
The  clubs  and  journals  and  shouts  of  the  people  had  for  some  time  been 
demanding  of  the  Assembly  the  suspension  of  the  king.  But  the  Assem- 
bly, restrained  by  respect  for  the  Constitution,  hesitated  in  the  adoption  of 

*  "The  cliiofs,"  snys  Rcrtrnnd  do  Molovillc,  "of  the  Gironde  faction,  who  had  planned  the 
insurrection,  did  not,  nt  thnt  tinio,  intend  to  overset  the  moniircliy.  Their  design  was  to  dethrone 
the  king,  niiike  the  crown  |mss  to  Ids  son,  and  cstnhlish  a  council  of  regency." 

t  Liimartinc's  History  of  the  Ciirondists,  vol.  2,  p.  40.  nnrbaroux,  one  of  the  most  nclive  of 
the  IciulerH  in  this  movement,  "  ii  ninn  of  penius,  fine  nffoctions,  and  noble  sentiments,"  in  his 
memoirs  writes,  "  It  was  our  wish  that  this  insunvction  in  tlie  cause  of  liberty  should  be  majei^tic 
as  is  Liberty  herself;  holy  as  are  the  rights  which  she  alone  can  ensure,  and  worthy  to  ser\-e  as  an 
exHnipIc  to  every  pcojilu,  w  ho,  to  break  the  chains  of  their  tyrants,  have  only  to  show  themselves." 


1792.]  THE  THRONE  DEMOLISHED.  279 

a  measure  so  revolutionary  and  yet  apparently  so  necessary.  The  insurrec- 
tion now  planned,  unless  it  could  be  quelled  by  the  king's  forces,  was  sure 
to  accomplish  its  end.  If  the  Assembly  did  not  in  its  consternation  pro- 
nounce the  throne  vacant,  or  if  the  king  did  not  in  his  terror  abdicate,  the 
whole  royal  family  was  to  be  held  in  a  state  of  blockade,  and  it  could  not 
be  disguised  that  they  were  in  danger  of  falling  victims  to  the  rage  of  the 
uiigovernable  mob.  This  was  the  plan  deliberately  formed  and  energetic- 
ally executed.  It  was  patriotism's  last  and  most  terrible  resort.  Humanity 
is  shocked  by  the  measure.  Yet  we  must  not  forget  that  foreign  armies 
were  approaching,  and  the  king  was  in  complicity  with  them,  and  thwart- 
ing all  measures  for  effectual  resistance.  The  court  was  organizing  the 
partisans  of  the  king  to  unite  with  the  foreigners  in  all  the  horrors  of  civil 
war.  A  nation  of  twenty-five  millions  of  freemen  were  again  to  be  en- 
slaved. All  the  patriots  who  had  been  instrumental  in  securing  liberty  for 
France  were  to  be  consigned  to  exile,  the  dungeon,  and  the  scaffold.  If 
ever  a  people  were  excusable  in  being  thrown  into  a  state  of  blind  ungov- 
ernable fury,  it  was  the  people  of  France  in  view  of  such  threats. 

Paris  was  in  this  state  of  panic  when  the  atrocious  proclamation  of  the 
Duke  of  Brunswick  reached  the  city.  The  king  had  sent  a  secret  embassa- 
dor, Mallet  du  Pan,  to  the  allies,  suggesting  the  tone  of  the  manifesto  he 
wished  them  to  issue.  Some  of  his  suggestions  they  adopted,  and  added  to 
them  menaces  as  cruel  and  bloody  as  any  deeds  ever  perpetrated  by  a  mob. 

"Their  majesties,"  said  the  duke  in  this  manifesto,  "the  emperor,  and 
the  king  of  Prussia,  having  intrusted  me  with  the  command  of  the  com- 
bined armies,  assembled  by  their  orders  on  the  frontiers  of  France,  I  am 
desirous  to  acquaint  the  inhabitants  of  that  kingdom  with  the  motives  which 
have  determined  the  measures  of  the  two  sovereigns,  and  the  intentions  by 
which  they  are  guided." 

He  then  stated  that  one  object  which  the  sovereigns  had  deeply  at  heart 
was  "  to  put  an  end  to  the  anarchy  in  the  interior  of  France ;  to  stop  the 
attacks  directed  against  the  throne  and  the  altar,  to  re-establish  the  regal 
power,  to  restore  to  the  king  the  security  and  liberty  of  which  he  is  de- 
prived, and  to  place  him  in  a  condition  to  exercise  the  legitimate  authority 
which  is  his  due." 

He  then  declared,  in  violation  of  all  the  rules  of  civilized  warfare,  that 
"such  of  the  national  guards  as  shall  have  fought  against  the  troops  of  the 
two  allied  courts,  and  who  shall  be  taken  in  arms,  shall  be  punished  as 
rebels  against  their  king."  This  doomed  every  French  patriot  who  should 
resist  the  invaders  to  be  shot  or  hanged. 

"  The  inhabitants  of  cities,  towns,  and  villages,"  continued  this  savage 
declaration,  "who  shall  dare  to  defend  themselves  against  the  troops  of 
their  imperial  and  royal  majesties,  and  to  fire  upon  them  either  in  the  open 
field  or  from  their  houses,  shall  be  instantly  punished  with  all  the  rigor  of 
the  laws  of  war,  and  their  houses  demolished  or  burned. 

"  The  city  of  Paris  and  all  its  inhabitants  without  distinction,  are  required 
to  submit  immediately  to  the  king,  to  set  him  at  entire  liberty,  to  insure  to 
him,  as  well  as  to  all  the  royal  personages,  the  inviolability  and  respect 
which  subjects  owe  their  sovereigns.     Their  imperial  and  royal  majesties 


280  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXVII. 

hold  the  members  of  the  National  Assembly,  of  the  department,  of  the  dis- 
trict, of  the  municipality,  and  of  the  National  Guard  of  Paris,  the  justices 
of  the  peace,  and  all  others  whom  it  may  concern,  personally  responsible » 
with  their  lives  for  all  that  may  happen;  their  said  majesties  declaring, 
moreover,  on  their  faith  and  word  as  emperor  and  king,  that  if  the  palace 
of  the  Tuileries  is  forced  or  insulted,  that  if  the  least  violence,  the  least  out- 
rage is  offered  to  their  majesties  the  king  and  queen  and  to  the  royal  fam- 
ily, if  immediate  provision  is  not  made  for  their  safety,  their  preservation, 
and  their  liberty,  they  will  take  an  exemplary  and  ever-memorable  venge- 
ance, hy  giving  iq:>  the  city  of  Paris  to  military  execution  and  total  destruction., 
and  the  rebels  guilty  of  outrages  to  the  jmnishments  they  shall  have  deserved^* 

This  ferocious  document  was  printed  in  all  the  Royalist  papers  in  Paris 
on  the  28th  of  July.  The  king  immediately  issued  a  message  disavowing 
any  agency  in  the  manifesto.  But  the  people  no  longer  had  any  confidence 
in  the  word  of  the  king.  Paris  was  thrown  into  a  state  of  terrible  agitation. 
The  forty-eight  sections  of  Paris  met,  and  commissioned  the  mayor,  Petion, 
to  appear  before  the  General  Assembly,  and  petition,  in  tlieir  name,  the 
•lethronement  of  the  king.  On  the  3d  of  August,  Potion,  at  the  head  of  a 
numerous  deputation,  presented  himself  before  the  Assembly.  In  an  ad- 
dress, calm,  unimpassioned,  but  terrible  in  its  severity,  he  retraced  the  whole 
course  of  the  king  from  the  commencement  of  the  Revolution,  and  closed 
with  the  solemn  demand  for  the  dethronement  of  Louis  XVI.,  as  the  most 
dangerous  enemy  of  the  nation.  The  Assembly  was  embarrassed  by  its 
desire  to  adhere  to  the  Constitution  which  it  had  sworn  to  obey.  The  de- 
thronement of  the  king  was  not  a  constitutional  but  a  revolutionary  act.  A 
long  and  stormy  debate  ensued,  during  which  the  hall  was  flooded  with 
petitions  against  the  king.  The  king's  friends  were  again  intensely  anxious 
to  secure  his  escape.  But  the  king  would  not  listen  to  their  plans,  for  he 
was  so  infatuated  as  to  believe  that  the  Duke  of  Brunswick  would  soon,  by 
an  unimpeded  march,  be  in  Paris  for  his  rescue. 

The  sympathy  which  La  Fayette  had  manifested  for  the  royal  family  had 
now  ruined  him  in  the  esteem  of  the  populace.  He  was  every  where  de- 
nounced as  a  traitor,  and  a  strong  effort  was  made  to  compel  the  Assembly 
to  indite  a  bill  of  accusation  against  him.  But  La  Fayette's  friends  in  the 
chamber  rallied,  and  he  was  absolved  from  the  charge  of  treason  by  a  vote 
of  four  hundred  and  forty-six  against  two  hundred  and  eighty.  The  popu- 
lace was  so  exasperated  by  this  result  that  they  heaped  abuse  upon  all  who 
voted  in  his  favor,  and  several  of  them  were  severely  maltreated  by  the  mob. 
The  National  Assembly  had  now  become  unpopular.  It  was  ferociously 
denounced  in  the  club  of  the  Jacobins  and  in  all  the  corners  of  the  streets, 
[n  the  mean  time  the  insurrectionary  committee,  formed  from  the  Jacobin 
club,  were  busy  in  preparation  for  the  great  insurrection.     All  hearts  were 

*  "The  pTcntCRt  scnsfttion  was  produced  in  our  own  countr>'  of  Great  Britain,  and  all  over  Eu- 
io|K',  l.y  II  manifesto  like  tiiis,  wliicli  went  in  truth  to  suy,  that  two  military  Jjowcrs  were  to  march 
into  a  ncinhlxiriuK  and  independent  kingdom  to  settle  tiic  eivil  dissensions  there  as  they  thoupht 
Itcst,  and  to  ].Hiiish  l.y  military  law,  as  rel.els  and  traitors,  all  who  jiresumed  to  resist  them.  No 
friend  to  freedom  or  tiie  p-neral  rights  i.f  mankind  eoidd,  for  a  moment,  tolerate  sueh  a  jiroeedure 
as  this.  Even  the  nueeess  of  the  Jaeohins  and  Anarchists  was  thought  pnf.'ral.le  to  the  trium]ili 
of  invaders  like  theHc."— yVo/'.  .Smyth's  Lectures  on  the  Fr.  Rev.,  vol.  ii.,  \\  32(!. 


1792.]  THE  THEONE  DEMOLISHED.  281 

appalled,  for  all  could  see  that  a  cloud  of  terrific  blackness  was  gathering, 
and  no  one  could  tell  what  limit  there  would  be  to  the  ravages  of  the  storm. 

At  midnight,  on  the  9th  of  August,  the  dismal  sound  of  the  tocsin  was 
heard.  From  steeple  to  steeple  the  boding  tones  floated  through  the  dark 
air.  A  thousand  drums  beat  the  alarm  at  the  appointed  rendezvous,  and 
the  booming  of  guns  shook  the  city.  In  an  hour  all  Paris  was  in  tumult. 
The  clatter  of  iron  hoofs,  the  rumbling  of  heavy  artillery,  the  tramp  of  dis- 
ciplined battalions,  and  the  rush  and  the  clamor  of  a  phrensied  mob,  presented 
the  most  appalling  scene  of  tumult  and  terror.  A  city  of  a  million  and  a 
half  of  inhabitants  was  in  convulsions.  The  friends  of  the  king  hurried  to 
the  palace,  announcing  with  pale  lips  that  the  terrible  hour  had  come.  The 
event  needed  no  announcement,  for  the  whole  city  was  instantly  trembling 
beneath  earthquake  throes.  The  king,  the  queen,  the  two  children,  and 
Madame  Elizabeth  had  assembled  tremblingly  in  one  of  the  rooms  of  the 
palace,  as  lambs  huddle  together  when  wolves  are  howling  round  the  fold. 
Marie  Antoinette  was  imperially  brave,  but  she  could  not  in  that  hour  look 
upon  her  helpless  son  and  daughter  and  not  feel  her  maternal  heart  sink 
within  her.  Louis  XVI.  had  the  endurance  of  a  martyr,  but  he  could  not, 
unmoved,  contemplate  the  woes  of  his  family. 

The  friends  of  the  king  speedily  rallied,  and  brought  up  all  their  forces 
for  his  defense.  The  apartments  of  the  palace  were  filled  with  Eoyalist  gen- 
tlemen armed  with  swords,  pistols,  and  even  with  shovels  and  tongs.  Nine 
hundred  Swiss  guards,  upon  whom  it  was  thought  reliance  could  be  reposed, 
were  placed  on  the  stairs,  in  the  halls,  and  the  large  saloons.  Six  or  eight 
hundred  mounted  dragoons  were  in  one  of  the  court-yards.  Several  battal- 
ions of  the  National  Guard,  who  were  most  friendly  to  the  king,  were  station- 
ed in  the  garden  with  twelve  pieces  of  artillery.*  The  defenders  of  the  pal- 
ace amounted  in  all  to  about  four  or  five  thousand  men.  But  many  of  these 
were  very  lukewarm  in  their  loyalty,  and  might  at  any  moment  be  expected 
to  fraternize  with  the  populace.f 

Petion,  the  mayor,  was  sent  for.  He  came,  and  after  an  awkward  inter- 
view retired,  leaving  Mandat,  who  was  general-in-chief  of  the  National  Guard, 
commander  of  the  troops  at  the  Tuileries.  It  was  a  sultry  night.  Every 
window  at  the  Tuileries  was  thrown  open,  and  the  inmates  listened  anxious- 
ly to  the  uproar  which  rose  from  every  part  of  the  city.  The  queen  and 
Madame  Elizabeth  ascended  to  a  balcony  opening  from  one  of  the  highest 
stories  of  the  palace.  The  night  was  calm  and  beautiful,  the  moon  brilliant 
in  the  west,  and  Orion  and  the  Pleiades  shining  serenely  in  the  east.:}:  There 
the  queen  and  the  princess  stood  for  some  time,  trembling  and  in  silence  as 
the  peal  of  bells,  the  clangor  of  drums,  the  rumbling  of  artillery  wheels,  and 
the  shouts  of  the  advancing  bands,  filled  the  air.  From  every  direction,  the 
east,  the  west,  the  north  and  the  south,  the  portentous  booming  of  the  toc- 

*  The  Garden  of  the  Tuileries  includes  an  area  of  about  sixty-seven  acres.  A  whole  army 
could  encamp  there. 

t  One  of  the  officers  of  the  staff  said  to  Madame  Campan,  in  the  midst  of  this  scene  of  terror 
and  confusion,  "Put  your  jewels  and  money  into  your  pockets.  Our  dangers  are  unavoidable. 
The  means  of  defense  are  unavailing.  Safety  might  be  obtained  from  some  degree  of  energy  in 
the  king;  but  that  is  the  only  virtue  in  which  he  is  deficient." — Madame  Cawpan,  vol.  ii.,  p.  240. 

X  Roederer,  Chronique  de  Cinquante  Jours. 


932  TH^  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXVII. 

.sin  was  heard,  and  infuriated  insurgents,  in  numbers  which  could  not  be 
counted,  through  all  the  streets  and  avenues,  were  pouring  toward  the  palace. 
The  bridges  crossing  the  river  echoed  with  their  tread,  while  the  blaze  of  bon- 
fires and'the  gleam  of  torches  added  to  the  appalling  sublimities  of  the  scene  * 

The  queen  broke  the  silence.  Pointing  to  the  moon  she  said,  "  Before 
that  moon  returns  again,  either  the  allies  will  be  here  and  we  shall  be  res- 
cued, or  I  shall  be  no  more.     But  let  us  descend  to  the  king." 

The  spectacle  seemed  but  to  have  aroused  the  energies  of  Marie  Antoi- 
nette. The  spirit  of  her  imperial  mother  glowed  in  her  bosom.f  Her  cheeks 
were  pale  as  death,  her  lips  were  compressed,  her  eyes  flashed  fire,  and,  as 
she  returned  to  the  room  where  her  husband  stood  bewildered  and  submissive 
to  his  lot,  she  approached  a  grenadier,  drew  a  pistol  from  his  belt,  and,  pre- 
senting it  to  her  husband,  said, 

"  Now,  sire !  now  is  the  time  to  show  yourself  a  king." 

But  Louis  XVI.  was  a  quiet,  patient,  enduring  man,  with  nothing  impe- 
rial in  his  nature.  With  the  most  imperturbable  meekness  he  took  the  pis- 
tol and  handed  it  back  to  the  grenadier.  The  mayor,  Petion,  an  active  mem- 
ber of  the  Jacobin  Club,  had  manifested  no  disposition  to  render  effectual 
aid  in  the  defense  of  the  palace.  But  lest  it  should  seem  that  he  was  head- 
ing the  mob,  he  had  reluctantly  signed  an  order,  as  he  left  the  Tuileries,  au- 
thorizing the  employment  of  force  to  repel  force. 

The  insurgents  had  organized  an  insurrectional  committee  at  the  Hotel  de 
Ville,  and  immediately  sent  a  summons  for  Mandat  to  present  himself  be- 
fore them.  Mandat,  misinformed,  understood  that  the  summons  came  from 
the  municipal  government,  and,  as  in  duty  bound,  promptly  obeyed.  He 
had  hardly  left  the  palace  ere  word  was  brought  back  to  the  king  that  he 
had  been  assassinated  by  the  mob.  There  was  no  longer  an}'-  leader  at  the 
])alace ;  no  one  to  organize  the  defense ;  no  one  to  issue  commands.  The 
soldiers  in  the  court  of  the  Tuileries  and  in  the  Garden  were  looking  list- 
lessly about  and  bandying  jokes  with  the  mob  who  were  crowding  against 
the  iron  railing.:]: 

It  was,  however,  now  decided  that  the  king  should  descend  into  the  courts 
of  the  Carrousel,  in  the  rear  of  the  palace,  and  into  the  Garden,  in  front,  "to 
review  the  troops  and  ascertain  the  spirit  with  which  they  were  animated. 

*  "List!  throuRh  the  placid  midnight ;  clang  of  the  distant  storm-bell.  Steeple  after  steeple 
takes  up  the  wondrous  tale.  Black  courtiers  listen  at  the  windows  opened  for  air;  discriminate 
the  Btce];lo-l)ells.  Tliis  is  the  tocsin  of  St.  Roch ;  that,  again,  is  it  not  St.  Jaques,  named  de  la 
liourherir .'  Yes,  messieurs  !  or  even  St.  Germain  I'Auxcrrois,  hear  ye  it  not?  The  same  metal 
that  rang  storm  two  hundred  and  twenty  years  ago;  but  by  a  majesty's  order  then;  on  St.  Bai- 
tholomcw's  Eve  !" — Car/j/k,  vol.  ii.,  p.  138. 

t  "Tlic  l)uliavior  of  Marie  Antoinette  was  magnanimous  in  the  highe.st  degree.  Her  majestic 
air,  her  Austrian  lip  and  a(iuilino  nose,  gave  her  an  air  of  dignity  which  can  only  be  conceived  by 
tliose  who  beheld  her  in  tliat  trying  hour."— /V/z/r?-. 

t  \\  here  tlic  iron  railing  now  stands  which  separates  the  spacious  court  of  the  Tuileries  from 
the  Carrousel,  so  called  because  Louis  XIV.,  in  lGf)2,  held  a  great  tournament  here,  there  were, 
in  I7'.»2,  rows  of  small  houses  and  sheds.  The  court  was  then  divided  bv  railings  into  fbn?c  di- 
visions. The  central  one,  which  was  rather  larger  than  the  others,  was  called  the  Cour  Royale. 
The  king's  trw)i)«  were  staticmed  in  these  courts,  while  the  insurgents  were  filling  the  rarrousel. 
Thc«e  court-yards,  now  thrown  into  one,  alVordeil  Napuleun  ample  sj-nce  for  the  review  of  his 
lrooi»8. 


1792.]  THE  THRONE  DEMOLISHED.  283 

The  king  was  very  fat,  had  an  awkward  hobbhng  gait,  and  a  countenance 
only  expressive  of  a  passionless  nature.  He  was  dressed  in  a  plain  mourn- 
ing-suit, with  silk  stockings,  and  buckles  in  his  shoes.  His  dress  was  quite 
disarranged.  In  the  early  part  of  the  night  he  had  thrown  himself  upon  a 
sofa  for  rest,  and  thus  his  hair,  which  was  powdered  and  curled  on  one  side, 
was  without  j)owder  and  in  disorder  on  the  other.  Apprehensive  that  he  might 
be  assassinated  before  morning,  he  had  spent  some  time  in  devotional  exer- 
cises with  his  confessor,  and  his  cheeks  deathly  pale,  his  swollen  eyes  and 
his  trembling  lips,  plainly  showed  that  he  had  been  weeping.  Thus  he  pre- 
sented the  aspect  but  of  a  king  in  his  degradation.  Had  he  been  a  spirited 
man,  in  uniform,  mounted  on  horseback,  he  might,  perhaps,  have  rallied  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  troops.  As  it  was  he  could  excite  no  other  emotion  than 
that  of  compassion,  blended,  perhaps,  with  contempt. 

It  was  five  o'clock  of  one  of  the  most  brilliant  of  summer  mornings  as  the 
king,  followed  by  the  queen  and  his  children,  and  accompanied  by  six  staff 
ofiicers,  descended  the  marble  stairs  of  the  Tuileries  and  entered  the  royal 
court.  The  music  of  martial  bands  greeted  him,  the  polished  weapons  of 
the  soldiers  gleamed  in  the  rays  of  the  sun  as  they  presented  arms,  and  a 
few  voices  rather  languidly  shouted  Vive  le  Roi.  Others,  however,  defiantly 
shouted  Vive  la  Nation^  thus  showing  that  many  of  those  who  were  mar- 
shaled for  his  defense  were  ready  to  unite  with  his  assailants.  The  king 
stammered  out  a  few  incoherent  words  and  returned  to  the  palace. 

The  appearance  of  the  queen  in  this  terrible  hour  riveted  every  eye  and 
excited  even  the  enthusiasm  of  her  foes.  Her  flushed  cheek,  dilated  nostril, 
compressed  lip,  and  flashing  eye  invested  her  with  an  imperial  beauty  al- 
most more  than  human.  Her  head  was  erect,  her  carriage  proud,  her  step 
dignified,  and  she  looked  around  her  upon  applauding  friends  and  assailing 
foes  with  a  majesty  of  courage  which  touched  every  heart.  Even  the  most 
ardent  patriots  forgot  for  the  moment  their  devotion  to  liberty  in  the  enthu- 
siasm excited  by  the  heroism  of  the  queen.  Ee-entering  the  palace,  the  queen, 
in  despair,  ascended  the  stairs  to  the  saloon,  saying, 

"  All  is  lost.  The  king  has  shown  no  energy.  A  review  like  this  has 
done  us  more  harm  than  good." 

The  king,  however,  instead  of  ascending  to  his  apartment,  passed  through 
the  palace  into  the  Garden  to  ascertain  the  disposition  of  the  troops  stationed 
there.  With  his  small  retinue  he  traversed  the  whole  length  of  the  Garden. 
Some  of  the  battalions  received  him  with  applause,  others  were  silent,  while 
here  and  there  voices  in  continually  increasing  numbers  cried,  "  Doivn  tvith 
the  veto ;  down  vsith  the  tyrant:''  As  the  king  turned  to  retrace  his  steps, 
menaces  and  insults  were  multiplied.  Some  of  the  gunners  even  left  their 
guns  and  thrust  their  fists  in  his  face,  assailing  him  with  the  most  brutal 
abuse.  The  clamor  penetrated  the  interior  of  the  palace  and  the  queen, 
turning  pale  as  death,  sank  into  a  chair,  exclaiming, 

'•Great  God!  they  are  hooting  the  king.     We  are  all  lost." 

The  king  returned  to  the  palace,  pale,  exhausted,  perspiring  at  every  pore, 
and  overwhelmed  with  confusion  and  shame.  He  immediately  retired  to  his 
cabinet.     Eoederer,*  chief  magistrate  of  the  Department  of  the  Seine,  who 

*  M,  Eoederer,  a  constitutional  monarchist,  was  one  of  the  most  illustrious  men  of  the  Eevo- 


28i  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [CmVP.  XXVII. 

had  witnessed  the  hostile  disposition  of  the  troops,  now  hastened  to  the  cha- 
teau and  asked  permission  to  speak  to  his  majesty  in  private,  with  no  wit- 
nesses but  the  royal  family.  He  entered  the  royal  cabinet  and  found  the 
king  with  his  elbows  resting  on  his  knees  and  his  face  buried  in  his  handa 
All  retired  but  the  royal  family  and  the  king's  ministers. 

"Sire,"  said  M.  Roederer,  "you  have  not  a  moment  to  lose.  Neither  the 
number  nor  the  disposition  of  the  men  here  assembled  can  g^iarantee  your 
life  or  the  lives  of  your  family.  There  is  no  safety  for  you  but  in  the  bosom 
of  the  Assembly." 

The  hall  of  the  Assembly  was  in  the  old  monastery  of  the  Feuillants,  sit- 
uated on  the  western  side  of  the  Garden,  where  the  Rue  de  Rivoli  now  runs. 
The  royal  family  could  consequently  descend  into  the  Garden,  which  was 
filled  with  troops  collected  there  for  their  defense,  and  crossing  the  Garden 
could  enter  the  hall  with  but  little  exposure. 

But  such  a  refuge  to  the  high-spirited  queen  was  more  dreadful  than  death. 
It  was  draining  the  cup  of  humiliation  to  its  dregs. 

"  Go  to  the  Assembly !"  exclaimed  the  queen ;  "  never!  never  will  I  take 
refuge  there.  Rather  than  submit  to  such  infamy  I  would  prefer  to  be  nail- 
ed to  the  walls  of  the  palace." 

"It  is  there  only,"  M.  Roederer  replied,  "that  the  royal  family  can  be  in 
safety.  And  it  is  necessary  to  escape  immediately.  In  another  quarter  of 
an  hour,  perhaps,  we  shall  not  be  able  to  command  a  retreat." 

"What,"  rejoined  the  queen,  "have  we  no  defenders?     Are  we  alone?" 

"Yes,  madame,"  replied  Roederer,  "we  are  alone.  The  troops  in  the 
Garden  and  in  the  court  are  fraternizing  with  your  assailants  and  turning 
their  guns  against  the  palace.  All  Paris  is  on  the  march.  Action  is  useless. 
Resistance  is  impossible." 

A  gentleman  present,  who  had  been  active  in  promoting  reform,  ventured 
to  add  his  voice  in  favor  of  an  immediate  retreat  to  the  Assembly.  The 
queen  turned  upon  him  sternly,  and  said, 

"Silence,  sir,  silence!  It  becomes  you  to  be  silent  here.  "When  the 
mischief  is  done,  those  who  did  it  should  not  pretend  to  wish  to  remedy  it."* 

M.  Roederer  resumed,  saying,  "  Madame,  you  endanger  the  lives  oif  your 
husband  and  your  children.  Think  of  the  responsibility  which  you  'take 
upon  3'ourself." 

The  king  raised  his  head,  fixed  a  vacant  stare  of  anguish  for  a  moment  on 
M.  Roederer,  and  then,  rising,  said,  "  Marchons"  {Let  us  go). 

The  queen,  unable  any  longer  to  shut  her  eyes  to  the  fiitality,  turning  to 
M.  Roederer,  eagerly  added,  "  You,  sir,  arc  answerable  for  the  life  of  the 
king  and  for  that  of  my  son." 

"Madame,"  M.  Roederer  replied,  "we  undertake  to  die  by  j'our  side,  but 
that  is  all  we  can  promise."     It  was  then  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

lution.  ^  Dpnounccd  hy  the  Jncobins  he  was  compelled,  like  La  Fayette,  to  seek  refiiKe  in  flipht. 
L'lKin  Nnix.Icon's  return  frtun  Epypt  he  aided  eftt-etualiy  in  rescuiiip  France  from  anarchy,  and 
in  estI.l,li^hiIlp  the  ronsulate  and  the  Empire.  He  co-operated  cordially  with  the  Emin^ror  in 
1. in  plans  .,f  reform,  was  the  chi.f  instrument  in  concluding  a  treaty  between  France  and  the 
United  States,  and  t(K.k  a  larp-  share  in  the  regeneration  of  the  Kinpdom  of  Naples  by  Joseph 
Bonaj.arte.  When  NajK.lcon  fell  beucath  the  blows  of  allied  Europe,  R<K>dcrer,  in  sadness,  with- 
drew to  rctirxjmeut.— A«c.  Am.  *  Madame  Campan,  vol.  ii.,  p.  274,  note. 


1792.]  THE  THRONE  DEMOLISHED.  285 

A  guard  of  soldiers  was  instantly  called  in,  and  the  melancholy  cortege 
left  the  palace.  The  Swiss  troops  and  the  loyalist  gentlemen,  who  filled  the 
apartments,  looked  on  in  consternation  and  despair.  There  was  no  apparent 
escape  for  them,  and  they  seemed  to  be  abandoned  to  their  fate.  As  the 
king  was  crossing  the  threshold  he  thought  of  his  friends,  and  his  heart 
seemed  to  misgive  him.  He  hesitated,  stopped,  and,  turning  to  M.  Eoederer, 
said,  "What  is  to  become  of  our  friends  who  remain  behind  ?"  M.  Eoederer 
pacified  the  king  by  assuring  him,  though  falsely,  that  by  throwing  aside 
their  arms  and  their  uniform  they  would  be  able  to  escape  in  safety. 

They  then  entered  the  Garden  and  crossed  it,  unopposed,  between  the  two 
files  of  bayonets.  The  leaves  of  autumn  strewed  the  paths,  and  the  young 
dauphin  amused  himself  in  kicking  them  as  he  walked  along.  It  is  charac- 
teristic of  the  mental  infirmities  of  the  king  that  in  such  an  hour  he  should 
have  remarked,  "  There  are  a  great  many  leaves.    They  fall  early  this  year." 

When  they  arrived  at  the  door  at  the  foot  of  the  staircase  which  led  to 
the  hall  of  the  Assembly,  they  found  an  immense  crowd  of  men  and  women 
there  blocking  up  the  entrance,  "  They  shall  not  enter  here,"  was  the  cry ; 
"  they  shall  no  longer  deceive  the  nation.  They  are  the  cause  of  all  our 
misfortunes.  Down  with  the  veto !  Down  with  the  Austrian  woman !  Ab- 
dication or  death !" 

"Sire,"  said  one,  in  compassionate  tones  to  the  king,  "Don't  be  afraid. 
The  people  are  just.  Be  a  good  citizen,  sire,  and  send  the  priests  and  your 
wife  away  from  the  palace." 

The  soldiers  endeavored  to  force  their  way  through  the  crowd,  and,  in  the 
struggle,  the  members  of  the  royal  family  were  separated  from  each  other. 
A  stout  grenadier  seized  the  dauphin  and  raised  him  upon  his  shoulders. 
The  queen,  terrified  lest  her  child  was  to  be  taken  from  her,  uttered  a  pierc- 
ing shriek.  But  the  grenadiers  23ressed  forward  through  the  crowd,  and, 
entering  the  hall  with  the  king  and  queen,  placed  the  prince  royal  on  the 
table  of  the  Assembly. 

The  illustrious  Girondist  M.  Yergniaud  was  in  the  chair.  The  king  ap- 
proached him  and  said, 

"  I  have  come  hither  to  prevent  a  great  crime.  I  thought  I  could  not  be 
safer  than  with  you." 

"You  may  rely,  sire,"  Yergniaud  replied,  "on  the  firmness  of  the  Assem- 
bly. Its  members  have  sworn  to  die  in  supporting  the  rights  of  the  people 
and  the  constituted  authority." 

The  king  took  his  seat.  There  were  but  few  members  present.  A  mourn- 
ful silence  pervaded  the  hall  as  the  deputies,  with  saddened  countenances 
and  sympathetic  hearts,  gazed  upon  the  king,  the  queen,  Madame  Elizabeth, 
the  beautiful  young  princess,  and  the  dauphin,  whom  the  queen  held  by  the 
hand.  All  angry  feelings  died  in  presence  of  the  melancholy  spectacle,  for 
all  felt  that  a  storm  was  now  beating  against  the  throne  which  no  human 
power  could  allay. 


286  TUE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [CnAP.  XXVIIl. 


CHArTER  XXYIII. 

THE  ROYAL  FAMILY  IMPRISONED. 

Tumult  and  Dismay  in  the  Assembly. — Storming  the  Tuileries. — Aspect  of  the  Royal  Family. — 
The  Decree  of  Suspension. — Niglit  in  the  Cloister. — The  second  Day  in  the  Assembly. — The 
Royal  Family  Prisoners. — Third  Day  in  the  Assembly. — The  Temple. — The  Royal  Family 
transferred  to  the  Temple. 

But  few  of  the  excited  thousands  who  crowded  all  the  approaches  to  the 
Tuileries  were  conscious  that  the  royal  family  had  escaped  from  the  palace. 
The  clamor  rapidly  increased  to  a  scene  of  terrific  uproar.  First  a  few  gun- 
shots were  heard,  then  volleys  of  musketry,  then  the  deej)  booming  of 
artillery,  while  shouts  of  onset,  cries  of  fury,  and  the  shrieks  of  the  wound- 
ed and  the  dying  filled  the  air.  The  hall  of  the  Assembly  was  already 
crowded  to  suffocation,  and  the  deputies  stood  powerless  and  appalled.  A 
tumultuous  mass  pressed  the  door.  Blows,  pistol-shots,  and  groans  of 
death  were  heard  beneath  the  windows,  and  it  was  every  moment  appre- 
hended that  the  assassins  would  break  into  the  hall,  and  that  the  royal 
family  and  all  their  defenders  would  be  cut  down.  Several  bullets  shat- 
tered the  windows,  and  one  or  two  cannon-balls  passed  through  the  roof  of 
the  building.     Every  one  was  exposed  to  fearful  peril. 

There  was  no  longer  any  retreat  for  the  king.  By  the  side  of  the  presi- 
dent's chair  there  was  a  space  inclosed  by  an  iron  railing,  appropriated  to 
the  reporters.  Several  of  the  members  aided  the  king  in  teai'ing  down  a 
portion  of  this  railing,  and  all  the  royal  fiimily  sought  refuge  there.  At 
this  moment  the  door  of  the  hall  was  attacked,  and  tremendous  blows 
.seemed  to  shake  the  whole  building.  "We  are  stormed!"  shouted  one  of 
the  deputies.  There  was,  however,  no  escape  for  any  one  in  any  direction, 
and  for  some  moments  there  was  witnessed  a  scene  of  confusion  and  terror 
which  no  language  can  describe. 

At  the  same  time  there  was  a  frightful  conflict  raging  in  and  around  the 
palace.  Immediately  upon  the  departure  of  the  king,  all  the  Swiss  troops, 
who  were  hated  as  foreign  mercenaries  hired  to  shoot  down  the  French, 
were  drawn  into  the  palace  from  the  court-yard,  and  were  mingled  in  confu- 
sion through  its  apartments  with  the  loyalist  gentlemen,  the  officers,  and  the 
domestics.  Notwitlistanding  the  vast  dimensions  of  the  palace,  it  was  so 
crowded  that  there  was  scarcely  space  to  move. 

The  tlirong  in  the  Carrousel  attacked  one  of  the  gates,  broke  it  down, 
and  rushed  into  the  royal  court,  which  was  nearly  vacated  by  the  retire- 
ment of  the  Swiss.  Tlie  comi)anies  of  the  National  Guard  in  the  Carrousel 
iiLstead  of  opposing,  looked  approvingly  on,  and  wore  evidently  quite  dis- 
posed to  lend  the  a.ssailants  a  lirlpin^r  iiand.  A  large  piece  of  timber  was 
I  laced  at  the  foot  of  the  staircase  of  the  palace  in  the  form  of  a  barrier,  and 


17927] 


THE  KOYAL  FAMILY  IMPEISONED. 


287 


STOBMING  THE  TDTLEEIE8,  AUGUST   10,  1792. 


behind  this  were  intrenched  in  disorder,  crowding  the  steps,  the  Swiss  and 
some  of  the  National  Guard  who  adhered  to  the  king:.* 


*  "Napoleon  sc  trouvait  au  lOieme  Aout  a  Paris;  il  avait  ete  present  a  Taction.  II  m'ecrevit 
line  lettre  tres  detaillee,  que  je  lus  a  mes  colleguos  dii  directoire  du  de'partement ;  void  les  deux 
traits  principaux.  '  Si  Louis  XVI.  se  fut  montre  a  cheval  la  vietoire  lui  fut  restee ;  c'est  ce  qui 
m'a  paru,  a  I'esprit  qui  animait  les  groupes  le  matin. 

"  '  Apres  la  vietoire  des  Marseillais,  j'en  vis  un  sur  le  point  de  tuer  un  garde  du  corps ;  je  lui  dis, 

"  '  Homme  du  midi,  sauvons  ce  malheureux ! 

"  'Es  tu  du  midi? 

'"Oni! 

"  'Eh,  bicn!  sanvons  le!'" — Mevioires  du  Roi  Josrpli,  t.  i.,  p.  47. 


288 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


[CiLlP.  xxYin. 

Just  then  tlie  whole  Faubourg  St.  Antoine  came  marching  along  in  solid 
column.  They  marched  through  the  Carrousel,  entered  the  court,  and 
placed  six  pieces  of  cannon  in  battery  to  open  a  fire  upon  the  palace.  It 
was  to  avoid,  if  possible,  a  conflict,  that  the  guards  had  been  withdrawn 
from  the  court  into  the  palace.  The  shouts  of  a  countless  multitude  ap- 
plauded this  military  movement  of  the  mob.  The  Swiss  had  received  com- 
mand from  the  king  not  to  fire.  The  crowd  cautiously  pressed  nearer  and 
nearer  to  the  door,  and  at  length,  emboldened  by  the  forbearance  of  the 
defenders  of  the  palace,  seized,  with  long  poles  to  which  hooks  were  at- 
tached, one  after  another  of  the  sentinels,  and,  with  shouts,  captured  and 
disarmed  them.     Thus  five  of  the  Swiss  troops  were  taken  prisoners. 

At  last  a  single  shot  was  fired,  no  one  can  tell  on  which  side.  It  was  the 
signal  for  blood.     The  Swiss,  crowded  upon  the  magnificent  marble  stairs, 


•r.  \ 


UASSAOU  or  nia  botai.  ouaui,  aoouut  lit,  iroa. 


1792.]  THE  ROYAL  FAMILY  IMPRISONED.  289 

rising  one  above  another,  occupied  a  very  formidable  position.  They  in- 
stantly opened  a  deadly  fire.  Volley  succeeded  volley,  and  every  bullet 
told  upon  the  dense  mass  crowding  the  court.  At  the  same  moment,  from 
every  window  of  the  palace,  a  storm  of  shot  was  showered  down  upon  the 
foe.  In  a  moment  the  pavement  was  red  with  blood,  and  covered  with  the 
dying  and  the  dead.  The  artillerymen  abandoned  their  pieces,  and  the 
whole  multitude  rushed  pell-mell,  trampling  the  dead  and  wounded  beneath 
them  in  frantic  endeavors  to  escape  from  the  court  into  the  Carrousel.  In 
a  few  moments  the  whole  court  was  evacuated,  and  remained  strewed  with 
pikes,  muskets,  grenadiers'  caps,  and  gory  bodies. 

The  besiegers,  however,  soon  rallied.  Following  the  disciplined  troops 
fi'om  Marseilles,  who  were  led  by  able  officers,  the  multitude  returned  with 
indescribable  fury  to  the  charge.  Cannon-balls,  bullets,  and  grapeshot 
dashed  in  the  doors  and  the  windows.  Most  of  the  loyalist  gentlemen 
escaped  by  a  secret  passage  through  the  long  gallery  of  the  Louvre,  as  the 
victorious  rabble,  with  pike,  bayonet,  and  sabre,  poured  resistlessly  into  the 
palace  and  rushed  through  all  its  apartments.  The  Swiss  threw  down  their 
arms  and  begged  for  quarter.  But  the  pitiless  mob,  exasperated  by  the 
slaughter  of  their  friends,  knew  no  mercy.  Indiscriminate  massacre  ensued, 
accompanied  with  every  conceivable  act  of  brutality.  For  four  hours  the 
butchery  continued,  as  attics,  closets,  cellars,  chimneys,  and  vaults  were 
searched,  and  the  terrified  victims  were  dragged  out  to  die.  Some  leaped 
from  the  windows  and  endeavored  to  escape  through  the  Garden.  They 
were  pursued  and  mercilessly  cut  down.  Some  climbed  the  marble  monu- 
ments. The  assassins,  unwilling  to  injure  the  statuary,  pricked  them  down 
with  their  bayonets  and  then  slaughtered  them  at  their  feet.  Seven  hund- 
red and  fifty  Swiss  were  massacred  in  that  day  of  blood. 

The  Assembly  during  these  hours  were  powerless,  and  they  awaited  in 
intense  anxiety  the  issue  of  the  combat.  Nothing  can  more  impressively 
show  the  weak  and  frivolous  mind  of  the  king  than  that,  in  such  an  hour, 
seeing  the  painter  David  in  the  hall,  he  inquired  of  him, 

"How  soon  shall  you  probably  have  my  portrait  completed?" 

David  brutally  replied,  "I  will  never,  for  the  future,  paint  the  portrait  of 
a  tyrant  until  his  head  lies  before  me  on  the  scaffold."* 

The  queen  sat  in  haughty  silence.  Her  compressed  lip,  burning  eye,  and 
hectic  cheek  indicated  the  emotions  of  humiliation  and  of  indignation  with 
which  she  was  consumed.  The  young  princess  wept,  and  her  fevered  face 
was  stained  with  the  dried  current  of  her  tears.  The  dauphin,  too  young  to 
appreciate  the  terrible  significance  of  the  scene,  looked  around  in  bewildered 
curiosity. 

At  eleven  o'clock  reiterated  shouts  of  victory,  which  rose  from  the  Gar- 
den, the  palace,  the  Carrousel,  and  all  the  adjoining  streets  and  jDlaces,  pro- 
claimed that  the  triumph  of  the  people  was  complete.  The  Assembly,  now 
overawed,  unanimously  passed  a  decree  suspending  the  king,  dismissing  the 
Eoyalist  ministers,  recalling  the  Girondist  ministry,  and  convoking  a  Na- 
tional Assembly  for  the  trial  of  the  king.  As  Yergniaud  read,  in  accents  of 
grief,  this  decree  to  which  the  Assembly  had  been  forced,  the  king  hstened 

*  Histo'iy  of  the  Girondists,  by  Lamartine,  toI.  ii.,  p.  77. 

T 


290  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXYIII. 

intently,  and  then  said  satirically  to  M.  Coustard,  who  was  standing  by  his 
side, 

"  This  is  not  a  very  constitutional  act." 

"  True,"  ;M.  Coustard  rcj^lied ;  "  but  it  is  the  only  means  of  saving  your 
majesty's  life." 

The  Assembly  immediately  enacted  the  decrees,  which  the  king  had  ve- 
toed, banishing  the  refractory  priests  and  establishing  a  camp  near  Paris. 
Danton,*  whose  tremendous  energies  had  guided  the  insurrection,  was  ap- 
pointed Minister  of  Justice.  Monge,  the  illustrious  mathematician,  by  the 
nomination  of  his  equally  illustrious  friend  Condorcet,  was  placed  at  the 
head  of  the  Marine.  Lebrun,  a  man  of  probity  and  untiring  energy,  was 
appointed  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs. 

Thus  was  the  whole  government  effectually  revolutionized  and  reorgan- 
ized. During  all  the  long  hours  of  this  day  the  royal  family  sat  in  the 
crowded  Assembly  almost  suffocated  with  heat,  and  enduring  anguish  which 
no  tongue  can  tell.  The  streets  were  filled  with  uproar,  and  the  waves  of 
popular  tumult  dashed  against  the  old  monastery  of  the  Feuillans,  even 
threatening  to  break  in  the  doors.  The  regal  victims  listened  to  the  decrees 
which  tore  the  crown  from  the  brow  of  the  king,  and  which  placed  his 
sceptre  in  the  hands  of  his  most  envenomed  foes.  In  the  conflict  with  the 
defenders  of  the  palace,  between  three  and  four  thousand  of  the  populace 
had  perished,  in  revenge  for  which  nearly  eight  hundred  of  the  inmates  of 
the  Tuileries  had  been  massacred.  The  relatives  of  the  slain  citizens,  ex- 
asperated beyond  measure,  were  clamorous  for  the  blood  of  the  king  as  the 
cause  of  the  death  of  their  friends.  There  was  no  possible  covert  for  the  royal 
family  but  in  the  Assembly.  Fifty  armed  soldiers,  wuth  bayonets  fixed,  sur- 
rounded them  in  their  box,  and  yet  it  was  every  moment  feared  that  the 
populace  would  break  in  and  satiate  their  rage  with  the  blood  of  the  monarch 
and  his  family. 

The  king  was  ever  famed  for  his  ravenous  appetite.  Even  in  the  midst 
of  these  terrific  scenes  he  was  hungry  and  called  for  food.  Bread,  wine,  and 
cold  viands  were  brought  to  him.  He  ate  and  drank  voraciously  to  the  ex- 
treme mortification  of  the  queen,  who  could  not  but  perceive  how  little  re- 
spect the  conduct  of  the  king  inspired.  Neither  she,  Madame  Elizabeth,  nor 
the  children  could  taste  of  any  food.  They  merely  occasionally  moistened 
their  fevered  lips  with  iced  water. 

It  was  now  ten  o'clock  in  the  evening.  The  night  was  calm  and  beauti- 
ful. The  tumult  of  the  day  was  over,  but  the  terrific  excitement  of  the  scene 
had  brought  the  whole  population  of  Paris  out  into  the  promenades.     Fires 

*  Danton  was  one  of  the  ficrrest  of  the  Jacobins.  Madame  Rohxnil,  a  political  opponent,  thus 
dcscrilx-s  liim:  "  I  never  saw  any  countenance  that  so  strongly  exprosscd  the  violence  of  brutal 
l)a8isions,  and  the  most  astonishing  audacity,  half  disguised  by  a  jovial  air,  an  i\ftcctation  of  frank- 
ness, and  a  sort  of  simi.licity,  as  Danton's.  In  1778  he  wa.s'a  needy  lawyer,  more  burdened  with 
debts  than  causes.  He  went  to  Belgium  to  augment  his  resources,  iind,  after  the  lOth  of  August, 
liad  the  hardiiuw)d  to  avow  a  furiunc  of  £158,333  (!«!791,Cfir>),  and  to  wallow  in  luxury  while 
preaching  sans  culottism  and  sleeping  on  heajjs  of  slaughtered  men."  "  Danton,"  says  Mignct, 
"was  a  gigantic  revolutionist.  He  deemed  no  means  censurable  so  they  were  useful.  He  has 
iKJcn  termed  the  Mirabeau  of  the  populace.  Mirabeau's  vices  were  those  of  a  patrician.  Dan- 
ton's  those  of  a  denKKiat.  He  was  an  absolute  exterminator  without  being  i>ersonally  ferocior.s  ; 
iucxorublo  toward  masses,  hunmne,  generous  even,  toward  iudividuuls."— J/iV7Ju7,  p.  158. 


1792.]  THE  ROYAL  FAMILY  IMPRISONED.  291 

were  still  blazing  beneath  the  trees  of  the  Tuileries,  consuming  the  furniture 
which  had  been  thrown  from  the  windows  of  the  chateau.  Lurid  flames 
flashed  from  the  barracks  of  the  Swiss  in  the  court-yard,  which  had  been  set 
on  fire,  streaming  over  the  roof  of  the  palace,  and  illimiinated  both  banks 
of  the  Seine. 

The  whole  number  slain  during  the  day,  Royalists  and  Revolutionists, 
amounted  to  over  four  thousand.  Many  of  the  dead  had  been  removed  by 
relatives,  but  the  ground  was  still  covered  with  the  bodies  of  the  slain,  who 
were  entirely  naked,  having  been  stripped  of  their  clothing  by  those  wretches 
who  ever  swarm  in  the  streets  of  a  great  city,  and  who  find  their  carnival 
in  deeds  of  violence  and  blood.  By  order  of  the  insurrectional  committee  at 
the  Hotel  de  Ville,  who  had  deposed  the  municipal  government  and  usurped 
its  authority,  these  dead  bodies  were  collected  and  jailed  in  vast  heaps  in  the 
court-yards,  in  the  Garden,  in  the  Place  Louis  XV.,  and  in  the  Elysian  Fields. 
Immense  quantities  of  wood  were  thrown  upon  them,  and  the  whole  city  was 
illuminated  by  the  glare  of  these  funeral  fires.  The  Swiss  and  the  Marsel- 
lais,  the  Royalists  and  the  Jacobins,  were  consumed  together,  and  the  ashes 
were  swept  clean  from  the  payement  into  the  Seine. 

As  these  scenes  at  midnight  were  transpiring  in  the  streets,  the  Assembly 
sent  a  summary  of  its  decrees  to  be  read  by  torchlight  to  the  groups  of  the 
people.  It  was  hoped  that  these  decrees  would  satisfy  them,  and  put  a  stop 
to  any  farther  acts  of  violence  on  the  morrow.  It  was  two  o'clock  in  the 
morning  before  the  Assembly  suspended  its  sitting.  For  seventeen  hours 
the  royal  family  had  sat  in  the  reporters'  box,  enduring  all  of  humfliation 
and  agony  which  human  hearts  can  feel. 

In  the  upper  part  of  the  old  monastery,  above  the  committee-rooms  of 
the  Assembly,  there  was  a  spacious  corridor,  from  which  opened  several 
cells  formerly  used  by  the  monks.  These  cells,  with  walls  of  stone  and 
floors  of  brick,  and  entirely  destitute  of  furniture,  were  as  gloomy  as  the 
dungeons  of  a  prison.  Here  only  could  the  king  and  his  family  find  safety 
for  the  night.  Some  articles  of  furniture  were  hastily  collected  from  differ- 
ent parts  of  the  building,  and  four  of  these  rooms  were  prepared  for  the 
royal  party.  Five  nobles,  who  had  heroically  adhered  to  the  king  in  these 
hours  of  peril,  occupied  one,  where,  wrapped  in  their  cloaks  and  stretched 
out  upon  the  floor,  they  could  still  watch  through  the  night  over  the  mon- 
arch. The  king  took  the  next.  It  was  furnished  with  a  table,  and  a  plain 
wooden  bedstead.  He  bound  a  napkin  around  his  head  for  a  night-cap, 
and  threw  himself,  but  partially  undressed,  upon  his  uncurtained  bed.  The 
queen,  with  her  two  children,  took  the  next  cell.  Madame  Elizabeth,  with 
the  governess  of  the  children,  Madame  de  Tourzel,  and  the  Princess  Lam- 
balle,  who  had  joined  the  royal  family  in  the  evening,  took  the  fourth. 
Thus,  after  thirty-six  hours  of  sleeplessness  and  terror,  the  royal  famil}^ 
were  left  to  such  repose  as  their  agitated  minds  could  attain. 

The  sun  had  long  arisen  when  the  queen  awoke  from  her  fevered  slum- 
ber. She  looked  around  her  for  a  moment  with  an  expression  of  anguish, 
and  then,  covering  her  eyes  with  her  hands,  exclaimed, 

"Oh,  I  hoped  that  it  had  all  been  a  dream  !" 

The  whole  party  soon  met  in  the  apartment  of  the  king.     As  Madame 


292  THE  FREKCH  REVOLUTION.  [ClIAP.  XXVIII. 

Tourzel  led  in  the  two  royal  children,  Marie  Antoinette  looked  at  them 
sadly,  and  said, 

"  Poor  children !  how  heart-rending  it  is,  instead  of  handing  do'WTi  to 
them  so  fine  an  inheritance,  to  say,  it  ends  with  us !" 

"  I  still  sec,  in  imagination,"  writes  Madame  Campan,  "  and  shall  always 
see,  that  narrow  cell  of  the  Feuillans,  hung  with  green  paper ;  that  wretch- 
ed couch  where  the  dethroned  queen  stretched  out  her  arms  to  us,  saying 
that  our  misfortunes,  of  which  she  was  the  cause,  aggravated  her  own. 
There,  for  the  last  time,  I  saw  the  tears,  I  heard  the  sobs  of  her  whom  her 
high  birth,  the  endowments  of  nature,  and,  above  all,  the  goodness  of  her 
heart,  had  seemed  to  destine  for  the  ornament  of  a  throne  and  for  the  hap- 
piness of  her  people," 

The  tumult  of  the  streets  still  penetrated  their  cells,  and  warned  them 
that  they  had  entered  upon  another  day  of  peril.  The  excited  populace 
were  still  hunting  out  the  aristocrats,  and  killing  them  pitilessly  wherever 
they  could  be  found.  At  ten  o'clock  the  royal  family  were  conducted  again 
to  the  Assembly,  probably  as  the  safest  place  they  could  occupy,  and  there 
they  remained  all  day.  Several  of  the  Swiss  had  been  taken  prisoners  on 
the  previous  day,  and  by  humane  people  had  been  taken  to  the  Assembly 
that  their  lives  might  be  saved.  The  mob  now  clamored  loudly  at  the  door 
of  the  hall,  and  endeavored  to  break  in,  demanding  the  lives  of  the  Swiss 
and  of  the  escort  of  the  king,  calling  them  murderers  of  the  people.  Verg- 
niaud,  the  president,  was  so  shocked  by  their  ferocity  that  he  exclaimed, 
"  Great  God,  what  cannibals !" 

At  one  time  the  doors  were  so  nearly  forced  that  the  royal  family  were 
hurried  into  one  of  the  passages,  to  conceal  them  from  the  mob.  The  king, 
fully  convinced  that  the  hour  of  his  death  had  now  come,  entreated  his 
friends  to  provide  for  their  safety  by  flight.  Heroically,  every  one  persisted 
in  sharing  the  fate  of  the  king.  Danton  hastened  to  the  Assembly,  and  ex- 
erted all  his  rough  and  rude  energy  to  appease  the  mob.  They  were  at 
length  pacified  by  the  assurance  that  the  Swiss,  and  all  others  who  had 
abetted  in  the  slaughter  of  the  people  on  the  preceding  day,  should  be  tried 
by  a  court-martial  and  punished.  With  great  difficulty  the  Assembly  suc- 
ceeded in  removing  the  Swiss  and  the  escort  of  the  king  to  the  prison  of 
the  Abbaye. 

At  the  close  of  this  day  the  king  and  his  family  were  again  conducted  to 
their  cells,  but  they  were  i)laccd  under  a  strict  guard,  and  their  personal 
friends  were  no  longer  permitted  to  accompany  them.  This  last  deprivation 
was  a  severe  blow  to  them  all,  and  the  king  said  bitterly, 

"I  am,  then,  a  prisoner,  gentlemen.  Charles  I.  was  more  fortunate  than 
myself.     Ilis  friends  were  permitted  to  accompany  him  to  the  scafibld." 

Another  morning  dawned  uj)on  this  unhappy  family,  and  again  they  were 
led  U)  the  hull  of  the  Assembly,  where  they  jiassed  the  weary  hours  of  an- 
other day  in  the  endurance  of  all  the  pangs  of  martyrdom. 

It  was  at  Icngtli  decided  that  the  royal  family,  for  safe  keeping,  should  be 
imprisoned  in  the  tower  of  the  Temple.  This  massive,  sombre  building,  in 
whose  gloomy  architecture  were  united  the  ]>alaee,  the  cloister,  the  fortress, 
and  the  prison,  was  erected  and  inhabited  by  the  Knights  Templar  of  the 


1792.] 


THE  EOYAL  FAMILY  IMPRISONED. 


293 


Middle  Ages.  Having  been  long  abandoned  it  was  now  crumbling  to  decay. 
It  was  an  enormous  pile  which  centuries  had  reared  near  the  site  of  the 
Bastille,  and  with  its  palace,  donjon,  towers,  and  garden,  which  was  choked 
with  weeds  and  the  debris  of  crumbling  walls,  covered  a  space  of  many  acres. 


TUE  TE-MPLE. 


The  main  tower  was  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  high,  nine  feet  thick  at 
the  base,  surrounded  by  a  wide,  deep  ditch,  and  inclosed  by  an  immensely 
high  wall.  This  tower  was  ascended  by  a  very  narrow  flight  of  circular 
stairs,  and  was  divided  into  four  stories,  each  containing  a  bare,  dismal  room 
about  thirty  feet  square.  The  iron  doors  to  these  rooms  were  so  low  and 
narrow  that  it  was  necessary  to  stoop  almost  double  to  enter  them.  The 
windows,  which  were  but  slits  in  the  thick  wall,  were  darkened  by  slanting 
screens  placed  over  them,  and  were  also  secured  by  stout  iron  bars. 

Such  were  the  apartments  which  were  now  assigned  to  the  former  occu- 
pants of  the  Tuileries,  Yersailles,  and  Fontainebleau.  It  was  a  weary  ride 
for  the  royal  captives  through  the  Place  Yendome  and  along  the  Boulevards 
to  the  Temple.  An  immense  crowd  lined  the  road.  All  the  royal  family, 
with  Petion,  the  mayor,  occupied  one  carriage,  and  the  procession  moved  so 
slowly  that  for  two  hours  the  victims  were  exposed  to  the  gaze  of  the  popu- 
lace before  the  carriages  rolled  under  the  arches  of  the  Temple.     It  was  late 


294  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXVIII. 

in  the  afteraoon  when  they  left  the  Assembly,  and  the  shades  of  night  dark- 
ened the  streets  ere  they  reached  the  Temple. 

The  Assembly  had  surrendered  the  safe-keeping  of  the  king  to  the  Com- 
mune of  Paris,  and  appropriated  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  to  meet  the 
expenses  of  the  royal  family  until  the  king  should  be  brought  to  trial.  Con- 
scious that  an  army  of  nearly  two  hundred  thousand  men  was  within  a  few 
days'  march  of  Paris,  hastening  to  rescue  the  king,  and  that  there  were  thou- 
sands of  Royalists  in  the  city,  and  tens  of  thousands  in  France,  who  were 
ready  at  any  moment  to  lay  down  their  lives  to  secure  the  escape  of  the 
monarch,  and  conscious  that  the  escape  of  the  king  would  not  only  re-en- 
slave France,  but  consign  every  friend  of  the  Revolution  to  the  dungeon  or 
the  scaffold,  they  found  it  necessary  to  adopt  the  most  effectual  measures  to 
hold  the  king  securely.  They,  therefore,  would  no  longer  allow  the  friends 
of  the  king  to  hold  free  communication  with  him. 

The  Temple  itself,  by  outworks,  had  been  promptly  converted  into  a  for- 
tress, and  was  strongly  garrisoned  by  the  National  Guard.  Twelve  com- 
missioners were  without  interruption  to  keep  watch  of  the  king's  person. 
No  one  was  allowed  to  enter  the  tower  of  the  Temple  without  permission 
of  the  municipality.  Four  hundred  dollars  were  placed  in  the  hands  of  the 
royal  fomily  for  their  petty  expenses.  They  were  not  intrusted  with  more, 
lest  it  might  aid  them  to  escape.  A  single  attendant,  the  king's  faithful 
valet  Clery,*  was  permitted  to  accompany  the  captives.  It  does  not  appear 
that  the  authorities  wished  to  add  unnecessary  rigor  to  the  imprisonment. 
Thirteen  cooks  were  provided  for  the  kitchen,  that  their  table  might  be 
abundantly  supplied.  One  of  these  only  was  allowed  to  enter  the  prison 
and  aid  Clery  in  serving  at  the  table,  the  expenses  of  which  for  two  months 
amounted  to  nearly  six  thousand  dollars.f 

It  was  an  hour  after  midnight  when  the  royal  family  were  led  from  the 
apartments  of  the  Temple  to  which  they  had  first  been  conducted  to  their 
prison  in  the  tower.  The  night  was  intensely  dark.  Dragoons  with  drawn 
sabres  marched  by  the  side  of  the  king,  while  municipal  officers  with  lanterns 
guided  their  steps.  Through  gloomy  and  dilapidated  halls,  beneath  massive 
turrets,  and  along  the  abandoned  paths  of  the  garden,  encumbered  with 
weeds  and  stones,  they  groped  their  way  until  they  arrived  at  the  portals  of 
the  tower,  whose  summit  was  lost  in  the  obscurity  of  night.  As  in  perfect 
silence  the  sad  procession  was  passing  through  the  garden,  a  valet-de-cham- 
bre  of  the  king  inquired  in  a  low  tone  of  voice  whither  the  king  was  to  be 
conducted. 

"Thy  ma.stcr,"  was  the  reply,  "has  been  used  to  gilded  roofs.  Now  he 
will  see  how  the  assassins  of  the  people  are  lodged." 

The  three  lower  rooms  of  the  tower  were  assigned  to  the  captives.  They 
had  been  accom])anied  by  several  of  their  friends  who  adhered  to  them  iii 
these  hours  of  adversity.     All  were  oppressed  with  gloom,  and  many  shed 

*  "Clery  we  li.ive  Kocn  nnd  knnvm,  nnd  tlio  form  nnd  mnnners  of  tliat  model  of  pristine  faith 
luid  loyalty  caii  never  l.e  forp.tten.  Centlemanlike  nnd  complaisant  in  his  manners,  his  deep 
p-nvity  and  mchinclioly  features  announced  tliat  the  sad  scenes  in  which  he  had  acted  a  part  so 
honornhU-  were  never  for  a  moment  out  of  his  uwnwry."— Scott's  Life  of  Napoleon. 

t  Thicrb's  Hibt.  French  Itcvolution,  vul.  ii.,  p.  2(J. 


1792.]  THE  JIASSACKE  OF  THE  KOYALISTS.  295 

bitter  tears.  Still  they  were  not  in  despair.  Powerful  armies  were  march- 
ing for  their  rescue,  and  they  thought  it  not  possible  that  the  French  people, 
all  unprepared  for  war,  could  resist  such  formidable  assailants,  A  week  thus 
passed  away,  when  on  the  19th  the  municipal  ofiicers  entered  and  ordered 
the  immediate  expulsion  of  all  not  of  the  royal  family.  This  harsh  measure 
was  deemed  necessary  in  consequence  of  the  conspiracies  which  were  formed 
by  the  Royalists  for  the  rescue  of  the  king.  Unfeeling  jailers  were  now 
placed  over  them,  and,  totally  uninformed  of  all  that  was  passing  in  the  world 
without,  they  sank  into  the  extreme  of  woe. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

THE   MASSACRE  OF  THE   ROYALISTS. 


Supremacy  of  the  Jacobins. — Their  energetic  Measures. — The  Assembly  threatened. — Commis- 
sioners sent  to  the  Army. — Spirit  of  the  Court  Party  in  England. — Speech  of  Edmund  Burke. 
— Triumphant  March  of  the  Allies. — The  Nation  summoned  en  masse  to  resist  the  Foe. — Mur- 
der of  the  Princess  Lamballe. — Apology  of  the  Assassins. — Robespierre  and  St.  Just. — Views 
of  Napoleon. 

The  majestic  armies  of  the  Allies  were  now  rapidly  on  the  march  toward 
France,  and  there  was  no  force  on  the  frontiers  which  could  present  any  ef- 
fectual resistance.  La  Fayette  was  at  Sedan,  about  one  hundred  and  fifty 
miles  northwest  of  Paris,  at  the  head  of  twenty  thousand  troops  who  were 
devoted  to  him.  His  opposition  to  the  Jacobins  had  already  caused  him  to 
be  denomiced  as  a  traitor,  and  it  was  feared  that  he  might  go  over  to  the 
enemy,  and  by  his  strong  influence  carry  not  only  his  own  troops,  but  those 
of  General  Luckner  with  him.  The  condition  of  the  Patriots  was  apparently 
desperate.  The  Allies  were  confident  of  a  triumphant  and  a  rapid  march  to 
Paris,  where  all  who  had  sacrilegiously  laid  hands  upon  the  old  despotism 
of  France  would  be  visited  with  condign  punishment. 

The  Jacobin  Club  was  now  the  sovereign  power  in  France.  It  was  more 
numerous  than  the  Legislative  Assembly,  and  its  speakers,  more  able  and  im- 
passioned, had  perfect  control  of  the  populace.  The  Jacobins  had,  by  the  in- 
surrection, or  rather  revolution  of  the  10th  of  August,  organized  a  new  mu- 
nicipal government.  Whatever  measure  the  Jacobin  Club  decided  to  have 
enforced  it  sent  to  the  committee  which  the  club  had  organized  as  the  city  gov- 
ernment at  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  This  committee  immediately  demanded  the 
passage  of  the  decree  by  the  Legislative  Assembly.  If  the  Assembly  mani- 
fested any  reluctance  in  obeying,  they  were  informed  that  the  tocsin  would  be 
rung,  the  populace  summoned,  and  the  scenes  of  the  10th  of  August  renewed, 
to  make  them  willing.  Such  was  now  the  new  government  instituted  in  France. 

The  Commune  of  Paris,  as  this  municipal  body  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville  was 
called,  immediately  entered  upon  the  most  vigorous  measures  to  break  up 
the  conspiracy  of  the  Royalists,  that  they  might  not  be  able  to  rise  and  join 
the  invading  armies  of  the  Allies.  The  French  Patriots  had  two  foes  equally 
formidable  to  dread — the  emigrants  with  the  Allies  marching  upon  the  fron- 
tiers, composing  an  army  nearly  two  hundred  thousand  strong,  and  the  Roy- 
alists in  France,  who  were  ready,  as  soon  as  the  Alhes  entered  the  kingdom, 


296  TUE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXIX. 

to  raise  the  standard  of  civil  war,  and  to  full  upon  the  Patriots  with  exterm- 
inatiuc'  hand.  There  wiis  thus  left  for  the  leaders  of  the  Revolution  only 
the  cbjice  between  killing  and  being  killed.  It  was  clear  that  they  must 
now  either  exterminate  their  foes  or  be  exterminated  by  them.  And  it 
must  on  all  hands  be  admitted  that  the  king  and  the  court,  by  refusing  to 
accept  constitutional  liberty,  had  brought  the  nation  to  this  direful  alterna- 
tive. 

To  prevent  suspected  persons  from  escaping,  no  one  was  allowed  to  leave 
the  gates  of  Paris  without  the  most  careful  scrutiny  of  his  passport.  A  list 
was  made  out  of  every  individual  known  to  be  unfriendly  to  the  Revolu- 
tion, and  all  such  were  placed  under  the  most  vigilant  surveillance.  The 
citizens  were  enjoined  to  denounce  all  who  had  taken  any  part  in  the  slaugh- 
ter of  the  citizens  on  the  10th  of  August.  All  writers  who  had  supported 
the  Royalist  cause  were  ordered  to  be  arrested,  and  their  presses  were  given 
to  Patriotic  writers.  Commissioners  were  sent  to  the  prisons  to  release  all 
who  had  been  confined  for  offenses  against  the  court.  As  it  was  feared  that 
the  army,  influenced  by  La  Fayette,  might  manifest  hostility  to  the  revolu- 
tionary movement  in  Paris,  which  had  so  effectually  demolished  the  Consti- 
tution, commissioners  were  scut  to  enlighten  the  soldiers  and  bring  them 
over  to  the  support  of  the  people.  It  was  at  first  contemplated  to  assign 
the  palace  of  the  Luxembourg  as  the  retreat  of  the  royal  family.  The  Com- 
mune of  Paris,  however,  decided  that  the  public  safety  required  tliat  they 
should  be  held  in  custody  where  escape  would  be  impossible,  and  that  their 
safe -keeping  should  be  committed  to  the  mayor,  Petion,  and  to  Santerre, 
who  had  been  appointed  commander  of  the  National  Guards. 

The  Assembly,  alarmed  at  the  encroachments  of  the  self-constituted  Com- 
mune of  Paris,  ordered  a  re-election  of  a  municipal  government  to  take  the 
l^lace  of  that  which  the  insurrection  had  dissolved.  The  Commune  instantly 
dispatched  a  committee  to  inform  the  Assembly  that  if  they  made  any  far- 
ther move  in  that  direction  the  tocsin  should  again  be  rung,  and  that  the 
populace,  who  had  stormed  the  Tuileries,  should  be  directed  against  their 
hall.  The  deputies,  overawed  by  the  threat,  left  the  Commune  in  undisput- 
ed possession  of  its  power.  The  Commune  now  demanded  of  the  Assembly 
the  appointment  of  a  special  tribunal  to  punish  the  Royalists  who  had  fired 
upon  the  people  from  the  Tuileries,  and  those  who  "as  conspirators  and 
traitors"  were  ready  to  join  the  Allies  as  soon  as  they  should  enter  France. 
The  Assembly  hesitated.  The  Commune  sent  Robespierre  at  the  head  of  a 
deputation  to  inform  them  in  those  emphatic  terms  which  he  ever  had  at  his 
command,  that  the  country  was  in  danger,  that  the  Allies  and  emigrants  were 
on  the  march,  that  no  delay  could  be  tolerated,  and  that  if  tlic  decree  were 
not  immediately  passed  the  tocsin  should  he  rung.  The  appalling  threat  was 
eflicicnt,  and  the  decree,  though  some  heroically  opposed,  was  passed.*  Such 
was  the  origin  of  the  first  revolutionary  tribunal. 

•  "  As  a  citizen,  m  a  maRistrnto  of  the  people,"  said  one  of  the  ileputation,  "  I  come  to  inform 
you  that  at  twelve  o'clock  this  night  the  tocsin  will  be  ninp  and  the  alarm  beaten.  The  people 
arc  weary  of  not  bcinR  avenged.  Beware  lest  they  do  themselves  justice.  I  demand  that  yon 
fortlnviih  (Icirce  tlmt  u  citi/.cn  bu  appointed  by  each  section  to  form  a  criminal  tribunal."— r/iiVr.<i, 
i.,  ;ill. 


1792.] 


THE  IVIASSACEE  OF  THE  ROY^^XISTS. 


297 


As  soon  as  tlie  commissioners  from  Paris  arrived  at  the  camp  of  La  Fay- 
ette they  were  by  his  orders  arrested  and  imprisoned,  and  the  soldiers  took 
anew  the  oath  of  fidehty  to  the  law  and  the  king.  The  news  of  their  arrest 
reached  Paris  on  the  17th,  and  excited  intense  irritation.  La  Fayette  was 
denounced  more  vehemently  than  ever,  and  a  fresh  deputation  was  dispatch- 
ed to  the  army.  La  Fayette  was  now  ruined.  The  court  was  ready  to  hang 
him  for  his  devotion  to  liberty.  The  Jacobins  thirsted  for  his  blood  because 
he  thwarted  their  plans.  Every  hour  his  situation  became  more  desperate, 
and  it  was  soon  evident  that  he  could  do  no  more  for  his  country,  and  that 
there  was  no  refuge  for  him  but  in  flight.  On  the  20th,  accompanied  by  a 
few  friends,  he  secretly  left  his  army,  and  took  the  road  to  the  Netherlands. 
When  he  reached  the  Austrian  outposts  at  Rochefort,  he  was  arrested  as  a 
criminal  in  defiance  of  all  law.  With  great  secrecy  he  was  taken  into  the 
interior  of  Austria,  and  thrown  into  a  dungeon  in  the  impregnable  fortress 
of  Olmutz.     His  only  crime  was  that  he  had  wished  to  introduce  constitu- 


,"ii|iiviiii; 


AT  OLMUTZ. 


iional  liberty  to  his  country.  This,  in  the  eye  of  despots,  was  an  unpardon- 
able sin.  Here  we  must  leave  him  to  languish  five  years  in  captivity,  de- 
prived of  every  comfort.  Many  efforts  were  made  in  vain  for  his  release. 
Washington  wrote  directly  to  the  Emperor  of  Austria  in  his  behalf,  but 
without  effect.  It  was  not  till  Napoleon,  thundering  at  the  walls  of  Vienna 
with  his  invincible  legions,  demanded  the  release  of  La  Fayette,  m  1797,  that 
the  doors  of  his  dungeon  were  thrown  open.* 

*  "However  irritated  they  might  be  by  La  Fayette's  behavior  at  the  outset  of  the  Revohition,  the 
present  conduct  of  the  monarchs  toward  him  was  neither  to  be  vindicated  by  morality,  the  law  of 


298  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [CUAP.  XXIX. 

The  British  people  sympathized  deeply  with  La  Fayette,  but  the  British 
government  assailed  him  with  unrelenting  ferocity.  On  the  17th  of  March, 
1794,  General  Fitzpatrick  moved  an  address  in  the  House  of  Commons,  to  his 
majesty,  requesting  his  interference  with  the  King  of  Prussia  in  behalf  of 
La  Fayette.  Mr,  Fox  advocated  the  measure  in  a  speech  of  great  eloquence 
and  power.  Nothing  can  more  clearly  show  the  spirit  of  the  court  party  in 
England  at  this  time  than  the  speeches  made  by  them  on  this  occiision. 
William  Pitt  assailed  La  Fayette  in  the  most  unfeeling  manner,  declaring 
that  ''  he  would  never  admit  that  La  Fayette  was  a  true  friend  of  liberty  or 
deserved  well  of  his  country  or  of  Europe."  "  He  said,"  writes  Prof.  Smyth, 
"  every  thing  that  it  is  painful  to  read — he  was  rendered  insensible  on  this 
occasion  to  all  the  better  notions  of  his  education  and  natural  intuitions  of 
his  understanding.  There  is  no  pleasure  in  reading  the  abstract  of  his 
speech.  It  might  have  been  made  by  the  most  vulgar  minister  that  ever 
appeared.  Edmund  Burke  followed  in  a  sjDcech  of  unmeasured  abuse.  Li 
glowing  colors  he  depicted  all  the  scenes  of  violence  which  had  occurred  in 
France,  and,  declaring  La  Fayette  responsible  for  them  all,  concluded  with 
the  words,  "  I  would  not  debauch  my  humanity  by  supporting  an  application 
like  the  present  in  behalf  of  such  a  horrid  ruffian."*  Mr.  TVindham  followed 
in  the  same  strain.  He  expressed  exultation  in  view  of  the  calamities  which 
had  fallen  upon  this  great  patriot.  "La  Fayette,"  said  he,  "has  brought 
himself  into  that  state  into  w^hich  all  fomenters  of  great  and  ruinous  revolu- 
tions must  necessarily  fall ;  he  has  betrayed  and  ruined  his  country  and  his 
king.  I  am  not  sorry.  I  rejoice  to  see  such  men  drink  deep  of  the  cup  of 
calamity  which  they  have  prepared  for  the  lips  of  others ;  and  I  never  will 
consent  to  do  an  act  which  will  put  a  premium  on  revolution,  and  which 
will  give  the  example  of  sanction  to  treason,  and  of  reward  to  rebellion." 

Such  was  the  spirit  of  the  court  of  St.  James  at  this  time.  These  speeches 
were  made  after  La  Fayette  had  been  languishing  for  two  years  in  the  dun- 
geons of  Olmutz,  exposed  to  almost  every  conceivable  indignit}-,  the  partic- 
ulars of  which  Mr.  Fox  had  affectingly  narrated.  The  debate  was  concluded 
by  Mr.  Dundas,  who  thanked  Mr.  "Windham  for  his  admirable  speech.  When 
the  vote  was  taken  but  fifty  were  found  in  sympathy  with  La  Fayette,  while 
one  hundred  and  thirty-two  voted  against  him. 

The  two  sovereigns  of  Prussia  and  Austria  were  now  at  Maycnce.  Sixty 
thousand  Prussians  were  marching  in  single  column  by  Luxemburg  upon 
Longwy,  flanked  on  the  right  by  twenty  thousand  Austrians,  and  on  the  left 
by  twenty-six  thousand  Austrians  and  Hessians.  This  majestic  force  was 
strengthened  by  several  co-o])erating  corps  of  French  emigrants,  destined  to 
attack  exposed  positions,  and  to  afford  rallying  points  for  treason.     The  iu- 

nations,  nor  the  rules  of  sound  policy.  Even  if  lie  had  been  amenable  for  a  crime  against  his  own 
country,  we  know  not  what  right  Austria  or  Prussia  had  to  take  cognizance  of  it."— Si-o«-s  D/e 
of  Napoleon. 

"  Sucli  were  the  roasonings  and  expressions  of  Mr.  Burke  on  this  striking  occasion.  So  en- 
tirely wiLs  the  mind  of  tliis  extrmirdinnry  man  now  over  excited  and  overthrown;  so  entirclv  es- 
tranged from  those  elevated  feelings  and  that  spirit  of  jiliilanthropic  wisdom  which  have  mad'e  his 
speeches  in  the  American  contest,  and  niany  paragraphs  of  his  Reflections  on  this  Revohition  of 
France,  so  justly  the  adniiratiuu  of  mankind."— 7  V</.  Swuth's  Lcctuies  on  the  French  Jievolution, 
vol.  ii.,  p.  40'J. 


1792.] 


THE  MASSACRE  OF  THE  EOYALISTS. 


299 


vaders  crossed  the  frontiers  unimpeded,  and  after  a  short  and  bloody  strife 
captured  Longwy.  Onward  they  rushed.  The  feeble,  undisciplined  patriots, 
could  make  no  resistance,  and  fled  rapidly  before  them.  Thionville  and 
Verdun  were  surrounded,  and  after  a  short  but  terrific  storm  of  balls  and 
shells  capitulated.  There  were  many  Eoyalists  in  each  of  these  towns,  and 
they  received  the  invaders  with  every  demonstration  of  joy.  Their  daugh- 
ters in  congratulatory  procession  met  the  Bang  of  Prussia  at  the  gates  and 
strewed  his  path  with  flowers. 

The  garrison  of  Verdun  might  have  held  out  for  several  days,  though  they 
would  have  eventually  been  compelled  to  surrender.  General  Beaurepaire 
urged  very  strenuously  that  they  should  maintain  the  siege  to  the  last  pos- 
sible moment.  But  the  defensive  council  of  the  city,  with  whom  rested  the 
decision,  voted  an  immediate  capitulation. 

"Gentlemen,"  said  Beaurepaire,  "I  have  sworn  never  to  surrender  but 
with  my  life.  You  may  live  in  disgrace,  since  you  wish  it ;  but  as  for  me, 
faithful  to  my  oath,  behold  my  last  words:  I  die  freer 

Immediately  he  discharged  a  pistol-shot  through  his  brain,  and  fell  dead 
before  them.  The  Convention  decreed  to  him  the  honors  of  the  Pantheon, 
and  granted  a  pension  to  his  widow. 


Ill  Inn 


8DICIDE   OF   BEAUKEPAIEE. 


The  victorious  allies,  having  surmounted  these  first  obstacles,  now  plunged 
into  the  defiles  of  the  Argonne,  and  in  fierce  and  bloody  assaults  drove  be- 
fore them  the  troops  of  Dumouriez,  who  had  hoped  in  these  forest-encum- 
bered passes  to  present  effectual  resistance  to  the  foe.     The  invaders  were 


300  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXIX. 

now  triumphantly  marcliing  on  the  high-road  to  Paris,  and  fugitives  were 
continually  arriving  in  the  metropolis,  declaring  that  the  army  of  the  north 
was  destroyed,  and  that  there  was  no  longer  any  obstacle  to  the  advance  of 
the  enemy.  No  language  can  describe  the  consternation  which  pervaded 
the  capital.  The  exultation  in  the  enemy's  camp  was  immense.  The  "cob- 
lers  and  tailors,"  as  the  emigrants  contemptuously  called  the  Patriots,  were 
running  away,  it  was  said,  like  sheep.* 

As  each  day  brought  tidings  of  the  fearful  strides  which  the  Allies  were 
making  toward  the  capital,  indescribable  terror  was  enkindled.  The  Con- 
stitutionalists and  the  Girondists  were  utterly  paralyzed.  But  the  leaders 
of  the  Jacobins — Danton,  Robespierre,  and  Marat — resolved  that,  if  they  were 
to  perish,  their  Eoyalist  enemies  should  perish  with  them.  It  was  known 
that  the  Royalists  intended,  as  soon  as  the  Allies  should  be  in  Paris,  to  rise, 
liberate  the  king,  and  with  the  immense  moral  force  they  would  attain  by 
having  the  king  at  their  head,  join  the  invaders.  Nothing  would  then  re- 
main for  the  Revolutionists  but  exile,  death,  and  the  dungeon.f 

It  was  now  with  them  but  a  desperate  struggle  for  hfe.  They  must  either 
destroy  or  be  destroyed.  The  first  great  peril  to  be  apprehended  was  the 
rising  of  the  Royalists  in  Paris.  The  barriers  were  immediately  ordered  to 
be  closed,  and  guard-boats  were  stationed  on  the  river  that  no  one  might 
escape.  At  the  beat  of  the  drum  every  individual  was  enjoined  to  repair  to 
his  home.  Commissioners  then,  accompanied  by  an  armed  force,  visited 
every  dwelling.  Party  lines  were  so  distinctly  drawn  that  the  Royalists 
could  not  easily  escape  detection.  At  the  knock  of  the  commissioners  they 
held  their  breath  with  terror.  Many  attempted  concealment  in  chimneys, 
in  cellar-vaults,  beneath  the  floors,  and  in  recesses  covered  by  pictures  of 
tapestry.  But  workmen,  accustomed  to  all  such  arts,  accompanied  the  com- 
missioners. Chimneys  were  smoked,  doors  burst  open,  and  cellars,  floors, 
and  walls  sounded.  In  one  short  night  five  thousand  suspected  persons 
were  torn  from  their  homes  and  dragged  to  prison.  Every  man  was  deemed 
guilty  who  could  not  prove  his  devotion  to  the  popular  cause.ij: 

*  Jean  Debry,  in  the  Assembly,  exclaimed  with  fervor,  "The  most  instant  and  vigorous  meas- 
ures must  be  adojited  in  defense  of  our  country.  The  expense  must  not  be  thought  of.  Within 
fifteen  days  we  sliall  enjoy  freedom  or  meet  with  death.  If  we  are  conquered  we  shall  have  no 
need  of  money,  for  we  shall  not  exist.  If  we  are  victorious,  still  we  shall  not  feel  the  want  of 
money,  for  we  shall  he  free." — Jounuil  of  John  Moore,  M.  D.,  vol.  i.,  p.  IIG. 

t  "Tlie  intelliRcnce  of  the  flight  of  La  Fayette,  the  cntr}'  of  the  army  of  the  coalition  into  the 
French  territory,  the  cai)ture  of  Lon<;wy,  and  the  surrender  of  Verdun  burst  like  thunder  in  Paris, 
and  filled  every  heart  with  consternation,  for  France  had  never  ai)])roached  more  nearly  those 
sinister  days  which  presage  the  decay  of  nations.  Evbry  thinp;  was  dead  in  her  save  the  desire 
of  liviuR;  the  enthusiasm  of  the  country  and  liberty  sunived.  Abandoned  by  all,  the  countrj- 
did  not  abandon  it.self.  Two  things  were  required  to  save  it— time  and  a  dictatorship.  Time? 
The  hen.i-ui  of  Dumouriez  aflurded  it.  The  dictatorshi])?  Danton  assumed  it  in  the  name  of 
the  Couiuiuni-  uf  \\\n^.''—lAiinartlue,  [fist,  dr.,  vol,  ii.,  p.  119. 

X  Dr.  .lolin  Moore,  a  very  intelligent  English  physician,  who,  in  company  with  Lord  Lauder- 
dale, was  ill  Paris  during  all  these  scenes,  writes  in  his  journal,  "This  search  was  nuide  accord- 
ingly ill  the  course  of  last  night  and  this  morning.  The  commissioners  were  attended  with  n 
l>ody  of  the  National  Oiiard.s,  an<l  all  avenues  of  the  section  were  watched  to  jirevent  any  persons 
from  es.aping.  They  <lid  not  conic  to  our  hotel  till  al)out  six  in  the  morning.  I  atfeiuUd  them 
through  every  nnm,  and  oiK>ned  every  door  of  our  apartments.  Tliev  behaved  with  great  civility. 
We  hud  no  arms  but  pistol.s,  which  lay  openly  on  the  chimnev.  Tliev  admired  the  nicety  of  the 
workmanship  of  one  jmir,  but  never  ofVcred  to  take  them."— Vol.  i.,  p.  IIG. 


1792.]  THE  MASSACEE  OF  THE  ROYALISTS.  301 

Still  tlie  enemy  was  approaching.  "In  three  days,"  rumor  said,  "the 
Prussians  will  be  in  Paris."  The  whole  city  was  in  a  state  of  phrensy,  and 
ready  for  any  deed  of  desperation  which  could  rescue  them  from  their  peril. 
Danton  entered  the  Assembly  and  ascended  the  tribune  with  pallid  face 
and  compressed  lips.     Silence,  as  of  the  grave,  awaited  his  utterance. 

"The  enemy,"  said  he,  "threatens  the  kingdom,  and  the  Assembly  must 
prove  itself  worthy  of  the  nation.  It  is  by  a  convulsion  that  we  have  over- 
thrown despotism ;  it  is  only  by  another  vast  national  convulsion  that  we 
shall  drive  back  the  despots.  It  is  time  to  urge  the  people  to  precipitate 
themselves  en  masse  against  their  enemies.  The  French  nation  wills  to  be 
free,  and  it  shall  be." 

There  was  lurking  beneath  these  words  a  terrible  significance  then  little 
dreamed  of.  Jacobins  and  Girondists  were  now  united  by  the  pressure  of  a 
common  and  a  terrible  danger.  A  decree  was  immediately  passed  for  every 
citizen  in  Paris  capable  of  bearing  arms  to  repair  to  the  Field  of  Mars,  there 
to  be  enrolled  to  march  to  repel  the  Allies.  It  was  the  morning  of  the  Sab- 
bath. The  generale  was  beat,  the  tocsin  rung,  alarm-guns  fired,  and  placards 
upon  the  walls,  and  the  voice  of  public  criers,  summoned  every  able-bodied 
man  to  the  appointed  rendezvous.  The  philosophic  Vergniaud,  in  a  word, 
explained  to  Paris  the  necessity  and  the  efficacy  of  the  measure.* 

"The  plan  of  the  enemy,"  said  he,  "is  to  march  directly  to  the  capital, 
leaving  the  fortresses  behind  him.  Let  him  do  so.  This  course  will  be  our 
salvation  and  his  ruin.  Our  armies,  too  weak  to  withstand  him,  will  be 
strong  enough  to  harass  him  in  the  rear.  When  he  arrives,  pursued  by  our 
battalions,  he  will  find  himself  face  to  face  with  our  Parisian  army  drawn 
up  in  battle  array  under  the  walls  of  the  capital.  There,  surrounded  on  all 
sides,  he  will  be  swallowed  up  by  the  soil  which  he  has  profaned." 

In  the  midst  of  the  uproar  of  the  multitudes  surging  through  the  streets, 
as  the  bells  were  ringing,  drums  beating,  and  the  armed  citizens  hurrying 
to  the  Field  of  Mars,  the  rumor  was  widely  circulated  that  the  Royalists  had 
formed  a  conspiracy  to  strike  down  their  jailers,  break  from  their  prisons, 
liberate  the  king,  take  possession  of  the  city,  rally  all  their  confederates  around 
them,  and  thus  throw  open  the  gates  of  Paris  to  the  Prussians.  It  was  mani- 
fest to  all  that,  in  the  confusion  which  then  reigned,  and  when  the  thunders 
of  the  Prussian  and  Austrian  batteries  were  hourly  expected  to  be  heard 
from  the  heights  of  Montmartre,  this  was  far  from  an  impracticable  plan. 
It  was  certain  that  the  Royalists  would  attempt  it,  whether  they  had  already 
formed  such  a  plan  or  not. 

It  is,  however,  probable  that  shrewd  men,  foreseeing  this  peril,  had  deliber- 
ately resolved  to  hurl  the  mob  of  Paris  upon  the  prisons  for  the  assassination 

*  "  The  people  are  told  that  there  was  a  horrid  plot  between  the  Duke  of  Brunswick  and  cer- 
tain traitors  in  Paris  ;  that  as  soon  as  all  the  new  levies  were  completed,  and  all  the  men  intend- 
ed for  the  frontiers  had  marched  out  of  Paris,  then  those  same  traitors  were  to  take  command 
of  a  large  body  of  men,  now  dispersed  over  the  capital  and  its  environs,  who  have  been  long  in 
the  pay  of  the  court,  though  they  also  are  concealed ;  that  these  concealed  leaders  at  the  head 
of  their  concealed  troops  were  to  have  thrown  open  the  prisons  and  to  arm  the  prisoners,  then  to 
go  to  the  Temple,  set  the  royal  family  free,  and  proclaim  the  king ;  to  condemn  to  death  all  the 
Patriots  who  remain  in  Paris,  and  most  of  the  wives  and  children  of  those  who  have  marched  out 
of  it  against  the  enemies  of  their  country." — Moore's  Journal,  vol.  i.,  p.  144. 


302 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


[Chap.  XXIX. 

of  all  the  Royalists,  before  emptying  the  city  of  its  defenders  to  march  to 
meet  the  foe.  While  the  bewildered  masses  were  in  this  state  of  terrific  ex- 
citement, six  hackney-coaches  left  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  conducting  twenty- 
four  Royalist  priests,  who  had  refused  to  take  the  oath,  to  the  prisons  of  the 
Abbaye.  The  people  crowding  around  and  following  the  carriages  began 
to  murmur.  "  Here  arc  the  traitors,"  said  they,  "  who  intend  to  murder  our 
wives  and  children  while  we  are  on  the  frontiers." 

The  first  carriage  reached  the  door  of  the  prison.  One  priest  alighted. 
lie  was  instantly  seized,  and  fell  pierced  by  a  thousand  poniards.  It  was 
the  signal  for  the  slaughter  of  the  w^hole.  The  murderers  fell  upon  every 
carriage,  and  in  a  few  moments  all  but  one,  who  miraculously  escaped,  were 
slain.  This  hideous  massacre  roused  the  populace  as  the  tiger  is  roused 
when  he  has  once  lapped  his  tongue  in  blood.  The  cry  was  raised,  "  To  the 
Carmelites,  to  the  Carmelites."  In  this  prison  two  hundred  priests  were  con- 
lined.     The  mob  broke  in  and  butchered  them  all. 


BtjTcnrr.T  AT  Tin:  carmelttes. 


A  man  by  the  name  of  I\Iaillard  headed  this  mob,  which  consisted  of  but 
a  few  hundred  men.  Having  finished  the  work  at  the  Carmelites  and  gorged 
themselves  with  wine,  I\Iaillard  exclaimed,  "  Now  to  the  Abbaye."  The 
l)lood-stained  crew  rushed  after  him  through  the  streets,  and  dashed  in  the 
doors  of  tlie  prison.  The  Abbaye  was  filled  with  debtors  and  ordinary  con- 
victs as  well  as  suspected  aristocrats.  As  the  mob  rushed  into  the  corridor 
«)ne  of  tlic  jailers  mounted  a  stool,  and,  addressing  tlie  assassins,  said,  "  My 
Inends,  you  wish  to  destroy  the  aristocrats,  who  are  the  enemies  of  the  peo- 
pk^,  and  who  meant  to  murder  your  wives  and  children  while  you  were  at 
the  frontiers.  You  are  right  no  doubt ;  but  you  are  good  citizen's ;  you  love 
justice ;  and  you  would  Ix)  very  sorry  to  steej^  your  hands  in  innocent  blood." 

"Yes,  certainly,"  one  of  the  leaders  rejilied. 

"Well,  then,"  continued  tlie  jailer,  ''when  you  are  rusliing  like  furious 
tigers  upon  men  who  are  strangers  to  you,  are  you  not  liable  to  confound 
the  innocent  with  the  guilty '/" 


1792.]  THE  MASSACRE  OF  THE  ROYALISTS.  303 

These  thoughts  seemed  to  impress  them,  and  it  was  immediately  decided 
that  Maillard  should  judge  each  piisoner.  He  took  his  seat  at  a  table ;  the 
jjrison  list  was  placed  iu  his  hands,  and  the  i^risoners,  one  by  one,  were 
brought  before  his  prompt  and  terrible  tribunal.  It  was  agreed,  in  order  to 
spare  unnecessary  suffermg,  that  when  the  judge  should  say,  "  Sir,  you  must 
go  to  the  prison  of  La  Force,"  as  soon  as  the  prisoner  was  led  out  into  the 
court-yard  he  should  be  cut  down. 

A  Swiss  officer  was  first  brought  forward.  "  It  was  you,"  said  Maillard, 
"  who  murdered  the  people  on  the  10th  of  August." 

"We  were  attacked,"  the  unfortunate  man  replied,  "and  only  obeyed  our 
superior  officers." 

"  Yery  well,"  said  Maillard,  "  we  must  send  you  to  the  prison  of  La  Force." 

He  was  led  into  the  court-yard  and  instantly  slain.  Every  Swiss  soldier 
in  the  prison  met  the  .same  fate.  Thus  the  work  went  on  with  terrible  ex- 
pedition until  one  hundred  and  eighty  were  put  to  death.  All  the  women 
were  left  unharmed.  Many  who  were  brought  before  the  tribunal  were  ac- 
quitted, and  the  crowd  manifested  great  joy  in  rescuing  them  as  their  friends. 
Amid  these  horrid  scenes  there  were  some  gleams  of  humanity.  The  Gov- 
ernor of  the  Invalides  was  doomed  to  death.  His  daughter  clasped  her 
father  in  her  arms  and  clung  to  him  so  despairingly  that  the  hearts  of  the 
assassins  were  melted.  One,  in  a  strange  freak,  presented  her  with  a  cup  of 
blood,  saying,  "If  you  would  save  3''0ur  father  drink  this  blood  of  an  aristo- 
crat." She  seized  the  cup  and  drained  it.  Shouts  of  applause  greeted  the 
act,  and  her  father  was  saved.* 

All  the  night  long  these  horrid  scenes  were  continued.  Every  prison  in 
Paris  witnessed  the  same  massacres,  accompanied  with  every  conceivable 
variety  of  horrors. 

The  unfortunate  Princess  Lamballe,  bosom  friend  of  Marie  Antoinette, 
was  confined  in  the  prison  of  La  Force.  She  was  brought  before  the  revo- 
lutionary judge,  and  after  "a  brief  interrogation  she  was  ordered  to  "swear 
to  love  liberty  and  equality  ;  to  swear  to  hate  the  king,  the  queen,  and  roy- 
alty." "  I  will  take  the  first  oath,"  the  princess  replied ;  "  the  second  I  can 
not  take  ;  it  is  not  in  my  heart."  One  of  the  judges,  wishing  to  save  her, 
whispered  in  her  ear,  "  Swear  every  thing  or  you  are  lost."  But  the  un- 
happy |)rincess  was  now  utterly  bewildered  with  terror,  and  could  neither 
see  nor  hear.  Her  youth  and  beauty  touched  the  hearts  even  of  many  of 
these  brutal  men.  They  desired  her  rescue,  and  endeavored  to  lead  her 
safely  through  the  crowd.  Cry  out,  said  they,  *  long  live  the  nation,'  and 
3'ou  will  not  be  harmed.  But  as  she  beheld  the  pavement  strewn  with 
corpses  of  the  slain,  she  could  not  utter  a  word.  Her  silence  was  taken  for 
defiance.  A  sabre  blow  struck  her  down.  The  murderers  fell  upon  her 
like  famished  wolves  upon  a  lamb.  Her  body  was  cut  into  fragments,  and 
a  band  of  wretches,  with  her  head  and  heart  upon  pikes,  shouted  "  Let  us 
carry  them  to  the  foot  of  the  throner     They  rushed  through  the  streets  to  the 

*  "  Some  inexplicable  and  consolatory  acts  astonish  iis  amid  these  horrors.  The  compassion 
of  Maillard  appeared  to  seek  for  the  innocent  with  as  much  care  as  his  vengeance  sought  for  the 
guilty.  He  exposed  his  life  to  snatch  victims  from  his  executions." — Lamartine,  Uistoj-y  of  the 
Girondists,  vol.  ii.,  p.  140. 


304  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [Chap.  XXIX. 

Temple,  and  shouted  for  the  king  and  queen  to  look  out  at  the  windows, 
A  liumane  officer,  to  shield  them  from  the  awful  sight,  informed  them  of  the 
horrors  which  were  transpiring.  The  queen  fainted.  As  the  king  and  Mad- 
ame Elizabeth  bent  over  her,  for  hours  they  were  appalled  by  the  clamor 
of  the  rabble  around  the  walls  of  the  Temple, 

At  last  the  prisons  were  emptied,  and  the  murderers  themselves  became 
weary  of  blood.  It  is  impossible  to  ascertain  the  numbers  who  perished. 
The  estimate  varies  from  six  to  twelve  thousand.  The  Commune  of  Paris, 
which  was  but  the  servant  of  the  Jacobin  Club,  issued  orders  that  no  more 
blood  should  be  shed.  Assuming  that  the.  assassination  was  demanded  by 
the  public  danger,  and  that  the  wretches  who  had  perpetrated  it  had  per- 
formed a  patriotic  though  a  painful  duty,  they  rewarded  them  for  their  work. 
Nothing  can  more  clearly  show  the  terrible  excitation  of  the  public  mind, 
produced  by  a  sense  of  impending  danger,  than  that  a  circular  should  have 
been  addressed  to  all  the  communes  of  France,  giving  an  account  of  the  mas- 
sacre as  a  necessary  and  a  praiseworthy  deed.  In  this  extraordinary  me- 
morial, signed  by  the  Administrators  of  the  Committee  of  Surveillance,  the 
writers  say, 

"  Brethren  and  Friends, — A  horrid  plot,  hatched  by  the  court,  to  mur- 
der all  the  Patriots  of  the  French  empire,  a  plot  in  which  a  great  number  of 
members  of  the  National  Assembly  are  implicated,  having,  on  the  ninth  of 
last  month,  reduced  the  Commune  of  Paris  to  the  cruel  necessity  of  em- 
ploying the  power  of  the  people  to  save  the  nation,  it  has  not  neglected  any 
thing  to  deserve  well  of  the  country, 

"  Apprised  that  barbarous  hordes  are  advancing  against  it,  the  Commune 
of  Paris  hastens  to  inform  its  brethren  in  all  the  departments  that  part  of 
the  ferocious  conspirators  confined  in  the  prisons  have  been  put  to  death  by 
the  people — acts  of  justice  which  appear  to  it  indispensable  for  repressing 
by  terror  the  legions  of  traitors  encompassed  by  its  walls,  at  the  moment 
when  the  people  were  about  to  march  against  the  enemy ;  and  no  doubt  the 
nation,  after  the  long  series  of  treasons  which  have  brought  it  to  the  brink 
of  the  abyss,  will  eagerly  adopt  this  useful  and  necessary  expedient;  and 
all  the  French  will  say,  like  the  Parisians,  '  We  are  marching  against  the 
enemy,  and  we  will  not  leave  behind  us  brigands  to  murder  our  wives  and 
children,'  " 

The  instigators  of  these  atrocious  deeds  defended  the  measure  as  one  of 
absolute  necessity,  "  We  must  all  go,"  it  was  said,  "  to  fight  the  Prussians, 
and  we  can  not  leave  these  foes  behind  us,  to  rise  and  take  the  city  and  as- 
sail us  in  the  rear."  " If  they  had  been  allowed  to  live,"  others  said,  "in  a 
few  days  we  should  have  been  murdered.  It  was  strictly  an  act  of  self-de- 
fen.se."  Danton  ever  avowed  his  ap])roval  of  the  measure,  and  said,  "  I 
looked  my  crime  steadfastly  in  the  face  and  I  did  it,"  Marat  is  reproached 
as  having  contributed  to  the  deed,*     Robespierre  appears  to  have  given  his 

*  M.  Clinhnt,  n  patriotic  orator,  who  had  l)ccn  n  Franciscan  friar,  spoke  in  the  Society  of  ,Tac- 
oiiins  a.s  follows  of  Mural:  "Marat  is  rciiroaclicd  with  heinK  of  'i  sanpiiuarv  disposition;  that, 
ho  contributed  to  the  late  luuasacreH  in  the  i)risuns.     But  la  so  doing  he  acted  in  the  true  spirit 


1792.]  THE  IVIASSACRE  OF  THE  ROYALISTS.  3O5 

assent  to  the  massacre  with,  reluctance,  but  it  is  in  evidence  that  he  walked 
his  chamber  through  the  whole  night  in  agony,  unable  to  sleep. 

At  eleven  o'clock  at  night  of  this  2d  of  September  Eobespierre  and  St- 
Just  retired  together  from  the  Jacobin  Club  to  the  room  of  the  latter.  St. 
Just  threw  himself  upon  the  bed  for  sleep.  Eobespierre  exclaimed  in  aston- 
ishment, 

"  What,  can  you  think  of  sleeping  on  such  a  night  ?  Do  you  not  hear 
the  tocsin  ?  Do  you  not  know  that  this  night  will  be  the  last  to  perhaps 
thousands  of  our  fellow-creatures,  who  are  men  at  the  moment  you  fall  asleep, 
and  when  you  awake  will  be  lifeless  corpses  ?" 

"I  know  it,"  replied  St.  Just,  "and  deplore  it;  and  I  wish  that  I  could 
moderate  the  convulsions  of  society;  but  what  am  I?"  then,  turning  in  his 
bed,  he  fell  asleep.  In  the  morning,  as  he  awoke,  he  saw  Eobespierre  pac- 
ing the  chamber  with  hasty  steps,  occasionally  stopping  to  look  out  of  the 
window,  and  listening  to  the  noises  in  the  streets.  "  What,  have  3-ou  not 
slept?"  asked  St.  Just. 

"  Sleep !"  cried  Eobespierre ;  "  sleep  while  hundreds  of  assassins  murdered 
thousands  of  victims,  and  their  pure  or  impure  blood  runs  like  water  down 
the  streets !  Oh  no !  I  have  not  slept.  I  have  watched  like  remorse  or 
crime.  I  have  had  the  weakness  not  to  close  my  eyes,  but  Danton^  he  has 
slepC 

Paris  was  at  this  time  in  a  state  of  such  universal  consternation,  the  gov- 
ernment so  disorganized,  and  the  outbreak  so  sudden  and  so  speedy  in  its 
execution,  that  the  Legislative  Assembly,  which  was  not  in  sympathy  with 
the  mob,  and  which  was  already  overawed,  ventured  upon  no  measures  of 
resistance.f 

But  there  can  be  no  excuse  offered  in  palliation  of  such  crimes.  Language 
is  too  feeble  to  express  the  horror  with  which  they  ever  must  be  regarded 
by  every  generous  soul.  But  while  we  consign  to  the  deepest  infamy  the 
assassins  of  September,  to  equal  infamy  let  those  despots  be  consig-ned  who, 
in  the  fierce  endeavor  to  rivet  the  chains  of  slavery  anew  upon  twenty-five 
millions  of  freemen,  goaded  a  nation  to  such  hideous  madness.  The  allied 
despots  of  Europe  roused  the  j^eople  to  a  phrensj^  of  despair,  and  thus  drove 
them  to  the  deed.  Let  it  never  be  forgotten  that  it  was  despotism^  not  liberty^ 
which  planted  the  tree  which  bore  this  fruit.  K  the  government  of  a  coun- 
try be  such  that  there  is  no  means  of  redress  for  the  oppressed  people  but  in 

of  the  Eevolution,  for  it  was  not  to  be  expected  that  while  our  bravest  patriots  were  on  the  front- 
iers we  should  remain  here  exposed  to  the  rape  of  the  prisoners,  who  were  promised  arms  and 
the  opportunity  of  assassinating  us.  It  is  well  known  that  the  plan  of  the  aristocrats  has  always 
been,  and  still  is,  to  make  a  general  carnage  of  the  common  people.  Now,  as  the  number  of  the 
latter  is  to  that  of  the  former  in  the  proportion  of  ninety-nine  to  one,  it  is  evident  that  he  who  pro- 
poses to  kill  one  to  prevent  the  killing  of  ninety-nine  is  not  a  blood-thirsty  man." 

*  Lamartine,  History  of  the  Girondists,  ii.,  132. 

t  Dr.  Moore,  while  denouncing  in  the  strongest  terms  the  bratality  of  the  popiilace,  says,  "In 
such  an  abominable  system  of  oppression  as  the  French  labored  under  before  the  Revolution,  when 
the  will  of  one  man  could  control  the  course  of  law,  and  his  mandate  tear  any  citizen  from  the 
arms  of  his  family  and  throw  him  into  a  dungeon  for  years  or  for  life — in  a  country  where  such 
a  system  of  government  prevails,  insurrection,  being  the  sole  means  of  redress,  is  not  only  justifi- 
able, but  it  is  the  duty  of  every  lover  of  mankind  and  of  his  country,  as  soon  as  any  occasion  pre- 
sents itself  which  promises  success." 

TJ 


306  TUE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [CUAP.  XXIX. 

the  horrors  of  insurrection,  that  country  must  bide  its  doom,  for,  sooner  or 
later,  an  outraged  people  will  rise.  While,  therefore,  we  contemplate  with  hor- 
ror the  outrages  committed  by  the  insurgent  people,  with  still  greater  horror 
must  we  contemplate  the  outrages  perpetrated  by  proud  oppressors  during 
long  ages,  comyguing  the  people  to  ignorance  and  degradation.  They  who 
brutalize  a  people  should  be  the  last  to  complain  that,  when  these  people  rise 
in  the  terriblencss  of  their  might,  they  behave  like  brutes.  There  is  no  safety 
for  any  nation  but  in  the  education,  piety,  and  liberty  of  its  masses.* 

The  Duke  of  Brunswick,  urging  resistlessly  on  his  solid  columns,  batter- 
ing down  fortresses,  plunging  through  defiles,  anticipated  no  check.  But 
on  the  20th  of  September,  to  his  great  surprise,  he  encountered  a  formidable 
army  intrenched  upon  the  heights  of  Valmy,  near  Chalons,  apparently  pre- 
pared for  firm  resistance.  Here  Dumouriez,  with  much  military  skill,  had 
rallied  his  retreating  troops.  All  France  had  been  roused  and  was  rushing 
eagerly  to  his  support.  Paris,  no  longer  fearing  a  rise  of  the  Royalists,  was 
dispatching  several  thousand  thoroughly-armed  men  from  the  gates  every- 
day to  strenghthen  the  camp  at  Valmy,  which  was  hardly  a  hundred  miles 
from  Paris.  Dumouriez,  when  first  assailed,  had  less  than  forty  thousand 
trooi)s  in  his  intrenchments,  but  the  number  rapidly  increased  to  over  seven- 
ty thousand. 

These  were  nearly  all  inexperienced  soldiers,  but  they  were  inspired  with 
intense  enthusiasm,  all  struggling  for  national  independence,  and  many  con- 
scious that  defeat  would  but  conduct  them  to  the  scaffold.  Macdonald,f 
who  afterward  so  gloriously  led  the  columns  at  Wagram,  and  Kellerman, 
who  subsequently  headed  the  decisive  charge  at  ^Marengo,  were  aids  of  Du- 
mouriez. Louis  Philippe  also,  then  the  Duke  of  Chartres  and  eldest  son  of 
the  Duke  of  Orleans,  signalized  himself  on  the  patriot  side  at  the  stern  strife 
of  Valm}^ 

The  Duke  of  Brunswick  brought  forward  his  batteries  and  commenced  a 
terrific  cannonade.  Column  after  column  was  urged  against  the  redoubts. 
But  the  young  soldiers  of  France,  shouting  Vive  la  A'ation,  bravely  repulsed 
every  assault.  The  Prussians,  to  their  inexpressible  chagrin,  found  it  im- 
possible to  advance  a  step.  Here  the  storm  of  battle  raged  with  almost  in- 
cessant fury  for  twenty  days.  The  French  were  hurrying  from  all  quarters 
to  the  field ;  the  supplies  of  the  invaders  were  cut  oif ;  dysentery  broke  out 
in  their  camp ;  autumnal  rains  drenched  them ;  winter  was  approaching ;  and 

•  •'  Amid  the  disorders  and  sad  events  which  have  taken  place  in  this  country  of  late,  it  is  impos- 
sible not  to  admire  the  Rcnerous  spirit  which  glows  all  over  the  nation  in  support  of  its  independ- 
ency. No  country  ever  displayed  a  nobler  or  more  patriotic  enthusiasm  than  pcrAades  France  at 
tluH  period,  and  which  glows  with  increasing  ardor  since  the  publication  of  the  Duke  of  Bruns- 
wick's manifesto,  and  the  entrance  of  the  Prussians  Into  the  countr)-.  None  but  those  whose 
minds  arc  ol)s<ured  by  jirnjudicc  or  penerted  by  selfishness  will  refuse  this  justice  to  the  general 
spirit  displayed  by  the  French  in  defense  of  their  national  independence.  A  detestation  of  the 
excesses  committed  at  Paris,  not  only  is  compatible  with  an  admiration  of  this  spirit,  but  it  is 
sucli  well-informed  minds  alone  as  possess  sufficient  candor  and  sensibilitv  to  admire  the  one,  who 
can  have  a  due  horror  of  liie  other."— ./b«r/„(/ry./o/,«  Mnorf,  J/.  A, vol",  i.,  p.  IfiO. 

t  "The  young  Macdonal.l,  des.cn.led  from  a  Scotcli  family  transplanted  to  France,  was  aid- 
de-camp  to  Dumouriez.  lie  learned  at  the  cami>  of  (Jrandp'ri-,  under  his  commander,  how  to 
save  a  country.  Hubse(iuent!y  lie  learned,  under  Napoleon,  iiow  to  illustrate  it.  A  hero  at  his 
lirsl  step,  lie  became  a  manslial  of  Frauco  at  the  end  of  hU  life."— /.am.ir<i«e,  Hist.  Cir.,  ii.,  156, 


I 


1792.]  THE  MASSACRE  OF  THE  ROYALISTS.  807 

they  were  compelled,  in  discomfiture  and  humiliation,  to  turn  upon  their 
track  and  retire. 

On  the  15th  of  October  the  Allies  abandoned  their  camp  and  commenced 
a  retreat.  They  retired  in  good  order,  and  recrossed  the  frontier,  leaving 
behind  them  twenty-five  thousand,  who  had  perished  by  sickness,  the  bullet, 
and  the  sword.  Dumouriez  did  not  pursue  them  with  much  vigor,  for  the 
army  of  the  Allies  was  infinitely  superior  in  discipline  to  the  raw  troops  un- 
der his  command. 

Winter  was  now  at  hand,  during  which  no  external  attack  upon  France 
was  to  be  feared.  All  government  was  disorganized,  and  the  question  which 
agitated  every  heart  was,  "What  shall  be  done  with  the  king?" 

The  Duke  of  Chartres,  subsequently  Louis  Philippe,  King  of  the  French, 
then  a  young  man  but  seventeen  years  of  age,  after  vigorously  co-operating 
with  Dumouriez  in  repelHng  the  invaders,  returned  to  Paris.  He  presented 
himself  at  the  audience  of  Servan,  Minister  of  War,  to  complain  of  some  in- 
justice.    Danton  was  present,  and,  taking  the  young  duke  aside,  said  to  him, 

"What  do  you  do  here?  Servan  is  but  the  shadow  of  a  minister.  He 
can  neither  help  nor  harm  you.  Call  on  me  to-morrow  and  I  will  arrange 
your  business." 

The  next  day  Danton,  the  powerful  plebeian,  received  the  young  patrician 
with  an  air  of  much  affected  superiority.  "  Well,  young  man,"  said  he,  "  I 
am  informed  that  your  language  resembles  murmurs ;  that  you  blame  the 
great  measures  of  government ;  that  you  express  compassion  for  the  victims 
and  hatred  for  the  executioners.  Beware;  patriotism  does  not  admit  of 
lukewarmness,  and  you  have  to  obtain  pardon  for  your  great  name." 

The  young  prince  boldly  replied,  "  The  army  looks  with  horror  on  blood- 
shed any  where  but  on  the  battle-field.  The  massacres  of  September  seem  in 
their  eyes  to  dishonor  liberty." 

"  You  are  too  young,"  Danton  replied,  "  to  judge  of  these  events ;  to  com- 
prehend these  you  must  be  in  our  place.  For  the  future  be  silent.  Return 
to  the  army ;  fight  bravely ;  but  do  not  rashly  expose  your  life.  France 
does  not  love  a  republic ;  she  has  the  habits,  the  weaknesses,  the  need  of  a 
monarchy.  After  our  storms  she  will  return  to  it,  either  through  her  vices 
or  necessities,  and  you  will  be  king.  Adieu,  young  man.  Remember  the 
prediction  of  Danton."* 

In  reference  to  these  scenes  Napoleon  remarked  at  St.  Helena,  on  the  3d 
of  September,  1816,  "  To-day  is  the  anniversary  of  a  hideous  remembrance ; 
of  the  massacres  of  September,  the  St.  Bartholomew  of  the  French  Revolution. 
The  atrocities  of  the  3d  of  September  were  not  committed  under  the  sanc- 
tion of  government,  which,  on  the  contrary,  used  its  endeavors  to  punish  the 
crime.  The  massacres  were  committed  by  the  mob  of  Paris,  and  were  the 
result  of  fanaticism  rather  than  of  absolute  brutality.  The  Septembriseurs 
did  not  pillage,  they  only  wished  to  murder.  They  even  hanged  one  of 
their  own  party  for  having  appropriated  a  watch  which  belonged  to  one  of 
their  victims. 

"  This  dreadful  event  arose  out  of  the  force  of  circumstances  and  the  spirit 
of  the  moment.     We  must  acknowledge  that  there  has  been  no  political 

*  History  of  the  Girondists,  by  Lamartine,  ii.,  185. 


OQ3  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ClLU'.  XXX. 

change  unattended  by  popular  fury,  as  soon  as  the  masses  enter  into  action. 
The  Prussian  army  had  arrived  within  one  hundred  miles  of  Paris.  The 
famous  manifesto  of  the  Duke  of  Brunswick  was  placarded  on  all  the  walls 
of  the  city.  The  people  had  persuaded  themselves  that  the  death  of  all  the 
Rovalists  in  Paris  was  indispensable  to  the  safety  of  the  Revolution,  The}- 
ran  to  the  prisons  and  intoxicated  themselves  with  blood,  shouting  Viue  la 
lievolution.  Their  energy  had  an  electric  efiect,  from  the  fear  with  which  it 
inspired  one  party,  and  the  example  which  it  gave  to  the  other.  One  hund- 
red thousand  volunteers  joined  the  army,  and  the  Revolution  was  saved. 

"I  might  have  preserved  my  crown  by  turning  loose  the  masses  of  the 
people  against  the  advocates  of  the  restoration.  You  well  recollect,  Mon- 
tholon,  when,  at  the  head  of  your  fauhouriens^  you  wished  to  punish  the 
treachery  of  Fouche  and  proclaim  my  dictatorship.  I  did  not  choose  to  do 
so.  My  whole  soul  revolted  at  the  thought  of  being  king  of  another  mob. 
As  a  general  rule  no  social  revolution  can  take  place  without  terror.  Every 
revolution  is  in  principle  a  revolt,  which  time  and  success  ennoble  and  ren- 
der legal,  but  of  w^hich  terror  has  been  one  of  the  inevitable  phases.  How, 
indeed,  can  we  say  to  those  who  possess  fortune  and  public  situations,  '  Be- 
gone and  leave  us  your  fortunes  and  your  situations,''  without  first  intimidating 
them,  and  rendering  any  defense  impossible.  In  France  this  point  was  ef- 
fected by  the  lantern  and  the  guillotine."* 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

THE   KING   LED   TO   TRL\L. 


Assassination  of  Royalists  at  Versailles. — Jacobin  Ascendency. — The  National  Convention. — 
Two  ranies,  the  Girondists  and  the  Jacobins. — Abolition  of  Royalty. — Madame  Roland. — 
Battle  of  Jemappc-s — Mode  of  life  in  the  Temple. — Insults  to  the  Royal  Family. — New  Acts 
of  Rigor. — Trial  of  the  King. — Separation  of  the  Royal  Family. — The  Indictment. — The  King 
begs  for  Bread. 

The  massacre  of  the  Royalists  in  Paris  was  not  followed  by  any  general 
violence  throughout  the  kingdom,  for  it  was  in  Paris  alone  that  the  Patriots 
were  in  imminent  danger.  In  Orleans,  however,  there  were  a  number  oi 
Royalists  imprisoned  under  the  accusation  of  treason.  These  prisoners  were 
brought  to  Versailles  on  the  night  of  the  9th  of  September  to  be  tried.  A 
band  of  assassins  from  Paris  rushed  upon  the  carriages,  dispersed  the  escort, 
and  most  brutally  murdered  forty -seven  out  of  fifty-three,  f  They  then  went 
to  the  prison,  where  twelve  were  taken  out,  and,  after  a  summary  trial,  as- 
sassinated. 

hi  the  mean  time  elections  were  going  on  for  the  National  Convention. 
Tlie  Jacobin  Clubs,  now  generally  dominant  throughout  France,  almost  ev- 
ery wliere  controlled  the  elections.  Some  sober  Patriots  hoped  that  the  Con- 
vention would  be  disposed  and  able  to  check  the  swelling  flood  of  anarchy. 
But  others,  when  th(!y  saw  that  the  most  violent  Revolutionists  were  chosen 
as  de])utiea,  and  that  they  would  be  able  to  overawe  the  more  moderate 
Patriots  by  the  terrors  of  the  mob,  began  to  despair  of  their  country.     Paris 

•  NajNileon  at  St.  Helena,  81)4.  *  I'dtier. 


1792.]  THE  KING  LED  TO  TRIAL.  309 

sent  to  tlie  Convention  Eobespierre,  Danton,  Marat,  Chal3ot,  and  others  who 
have  attained  terrible  notoriety  through  scenes  of  consternation  and  blood. 
The  Girondists  in  the  Convention,  Vergniaud,  Condorcet,  Barbaroux,  Gen- 
sonnd,  though  much  in  the  minority,  were  heroic  men,  illustrious  in  intelli- 
gence and  virtue.  There  was  no  longer  a  Koyalist  party,  not  even  a  Con- 
stitutional Royalist  party,  which  dared  to  avow  itself  in  France.  The  court 
and  the  Allies  had  driven  France  to  the  absolute  necessity  of  a  Republic. 

On  the  20th  of  September  the  Legislative  Assembly  was  dissolved,  and 
at  the  same  hour  and  in  the  same  hall  the  National  Convention  commenced 
its  session.     The  spirit  of  the  Girondists  may  be  seen  in  their  first  motion. 

"Citizen  representatives,"  said  M.  Manuel,  "in  this  place  every  thing 
ought  to  be  stamped  with  a  character  of  such  dignity  and  grandeur  as  to  fill 
the  world  with  awe.  I  propose  that  the  President  of  the  Assembly  be  lodged 
in  the  Tuileries,  that  in  public  he  shall  be  preceded  by  guards,  that  the  mem- 
bers shall  rise  when  he  opens  the  Assembly.  Cineas,  the  embassador  of 
Pyrrhus,  on  being  introduced  to  the  Roman  senate,  said  that  they  appeared 
like  an  assembly  of  kings." 

This  proposition  was  contemptuously  voted  down  by  the  Jacobins.  Col- 
lot  d'Herbois,  one  of  the  leading  Jacobins,  then  proposed  the  immediate 
abolition  of  royalty.  "  The  word  king,"  said  he,  "is  still  a  talisman,  whose 
magic  power  may  create  many  disorders.  The  abolition  of  royalty  there- 
fore is  necessary.  Kings  are  in  the  moral  world  that  which  monsters  are  in 
the  natural.  Courts  are  always  the  centre  of  corruption  and  the  work-houses 
of  crime." 

No  one  ventured  to  oppose  this,  and  the  president  declared  that  by  a 
unanimous  vote  royalty  was  abolished.  It  was  then  voted  the  22d  of  Sep- 
tember, 1792,  should  be  considered  the  first  day  of  the  first  year  of  the  Re- 
public, and  that  all  documents  should  follow  the  date  of  this  era.  It  was  on 
the  eve  of  this  day  that  intelligence  arrived  of  the  cannonade  of  Valmy,  in 
which  the  Patriot  armies  had  beaten  back  the  foe.  For  one  short  night 
Paris  was  radiant  with  joy. 

The  most  illustrious  of  the  Girondists  met  that  evening  in  the  saloon  of 
Madame  Roland,  and  celebrated,  with  almost  religious  enthusiasm,  the  advent 
of  the  Republic.  Madame  Roland,  in  the  accomplishment  of  the  most  in- 
tense desire  of  her  heart,  appeared  radiant  wath  almost  supernatural  bril- 
liance and  beauty.  It  was  observed  that  M.  Roland  gazed  upon  her  with  a 
peculiar  expression  of  fondness.  The  noble  and  gifted  Vergniaud  conversed 
but  little,  and  pensive  thoughts  seemed  to  chasten  his  joy. 

At  the  close  of  the  entertainment  he  filled  his  glass,  and  proposed  to  drink 
to  the  eternity  of  the  Republic. 

"  Permit  me,"  said  Madame  Roland,  "  after  the  manner  of  the  ancients,  to 
scatter  some  rose-leaves  from  my  bouquet  in  your  glass." 

Vergniaud  held  out  his  glass,  and  some  leaves  were  scattered  on  the  wine. 
He  then  said,  in  words  strongly  prophetic  of  their  fate,  "We  should  quaff, 
not  roses,  but  cypress-leaves,  in  our  wine  to-night.  In  drinking  to  a  repub- 
lic, stained  at  its  birth  with  the  blood  of  September,  who  knows  that  we  do 
not  drink  to  our  own  death  ?  No  matter ;  were  this  wine  my  blood,  I  would 
drain  it  to  liberty  and  equality." 


310 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


[ClLiP.  XXX. 


To  this  all  responded  with  the  words  Vive  la  Bepuhlique.  But  a  few 
months  elapsed  ere  almost  every  individual  then  present  perished  on  the 
scafibld. 

In  the  mean  time  Dumouriez,  with  thirty-five  thousand  men,  was  pursuing 
a  division  of  the  retreating  Allies,  consisting  of  twenty-five  thousand  Aus- 
trians,  under  General  Clairfayt,  through  Belgium.  On  the  -ith  of  November 
he  overtook  them  strongly  intrenched  upon  the  heights  of  Jemappes.     One 


*£:% 


1792.]  THE  KING  LED  TO  TRIAL.  311 

day  was  consumed  in  bringing  up  his  forces  and  arranging  his  batteries  for 
the  assault.  Sixty  thousand  men  were  now  arrayed  for  a  deadly  strife. 
One  hundred  pieces  of  cannon  were  in  battery  to  hurl  into  the  dense  ranks 
destruction  and  death.  On  the  morning  of  the  6th  the  storm  of  war  com- 
menced. All  the  day  long  it  raged  with  pitiless  fury.  In  the  evening 
ten  thousand  of  the  dying  and  the  dead  covered  the  ground,  and  the  Aus- 
trians  were  every  where  retreating  in  dismay.  This  new  victory  caused 
great  rejoicing  in  Paris,  and  inspired  the  revolutionary  party  with  new 
courage. 

The  day  at  length  arrived  for  the  trial  of  the  king.  It  was  the  11th  of 
December.  For  four  months  the  royal  family,  with  ever-alternating  hopes 
and  fears,  which  had  been  gradually  deepening  into  despair,  had  now  en- 
dured the  rigors  of  captivity.  The  king,  with  that  wonderful  equanimity 
which  distinguished  him  through  all  these  days  of  trial,  immediately  upon 
taking  possession  of  his  gloomy  abode  introduced  system  into  the  employ- 
ment of  his  time. 

His  room  was  on  the  third  story.  He  usually  rose  at  six  o'clock,  shaved 
himself,  and  carefully  dressed  his  hair.  He  then  entered  a  small  room  or 
closet,  which  opened  from  his  sleeping-room,  and  engaged  in  devotional 
reading  and  prayer  for  an  hour.  He  was  not  allowed  to  close  the  door,  for 
a  municipal  officer  ever  stationed  in  his  room  was  enjoined  never  to  allow 
the  king  to  leave  his  sight.  He  then  read  till  nine  o'clock,  during  which 
time  his  faithful  servant,  Clery,  put  the  room  in  order,  and  spread  the  table 
for  the  breakfast  of  the  royal  family.  At  nine  o'clock  the  queen,  the  chil- 
dren, and  Madame  Elizabeth  came  up  from  the  rooms  which  they  occupied 
below  to  breakfast. 

The  meal  occupied  an  hour.  The  royal  family  then  all  descended  to  the 
queen's  room,  where  they  passed  the  day.  The  king  employed  himself  in 
instructing  his  son,  giving  him  lessons  in  geography,  which  was  a  favorite 
study  of  the  king ;  teaching  him  to  draw  and  color  maps,  and  to  recite  choice 
passages  from  Corneille  and  Racine.  The  cjueen  assumed  the  education  of 
her  daughter,  while  her  own  hands  and  those  of  Madame  Elizabeth  were 
in  needle-work,  knitting,  and  working  tapestry. 

At  one  o'clock,  when  the  weather  was  fine,  the  royal  family  were  con- 
ducted by  four  municipal  officers  into  the  spacious  but  dilapidated  garden 
for  exercise  and  the  open  air.  The  officials  who  guarded  the  king  were  fre- 
quently changed.  Sometimes  they  chanced  to  be  men  of  humane  character, 
who,  though  devoted  to  the  disinthrallment  of  France  from  the  terrible  des- 
potism of  ages,  still  pitied  the  king  as  the  victim  of  circumstances,  and  treat- 
ed him  with  kindness  and  respect.  But  more  generally  these  men  were 
vnlo-ar  and  rabid  Jacobins,  who  exulted  in  the  opportunity  of  wreaking  upon 
the  king  the  meanest  revenge.  They  chalked  upon  the  walls  of  the  prison, 
"  The  guillotine  is  permanent  and  ready  for  the  tyrant  Louis."  "  Madame 
Veto  shall  swing."  "  The  little  wolves  must  be  strangled."  Under  a  gal- 
lows, to  which  a  figure  was  suspended,  was  inscribed  the  words,  "Louis  taking 
an  air-bath."    From  such  ribald  insults  the  monarch  had  no  protection. 

A  burly  brutal  wretch,  named  Eocher,  was  one  of  the  keepers  of  the  Tower. 
He  went  swaggering  about  with  a  bunch  of  enormous  keys  clattering  at  his 


312 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


[Chap.  XXX. 


LOUIS   XVI.    AM)   TllK   E  lYAI. 


belt,  seeming  to  glory  in  his  power  of  annoying,  by  petty  insults,  a  Ung  and 
a  queen.  When  the  royal  family  were  going  out  into  the  garden  he  would 
go  before  them  to  unlock  the  doors.  Making  a  great  demonstration  in  rat- 
tling his  keys,  and  affecting  much  difficulty  in  finding  the  right  one,  all  the 
party  would  be  kept  waiting  while  he  made  all  possible  delay  and  noise  in 
drawing  the  bolts  and  swinging  open  the  ponderous  doors.  At  the  side  of 
the  last  door  he  not  unfrcquently  stationed  himself  with  his  pipe  in  his 
mouth,  and  puffed  tobacco-smoke  into  the  faces  of  the  king,  the  queen,  and 
the  children.  Some  of  the  guards  stationed  around  would  burst  into  insult- 
ing laughter  in  view  of  these  indignities,  which  the  king  endured  with  meek- 
nes.s  which  seems  supernatural. 

The  recital  of  such  conduct  makes  the  blood  boil  in  one's  veins,  and  leads 
one  almost  to  detest  the  very  mime  of  liberty.  But  then  we  must  not  for- 
get that  it  was  despotism  which  formed  these  hideous  characters;  that,  age 
after  age  and  century  after  century,  kings  and  nobles  had  been  trampling 
upon  the  people,  crushing  their  rights,  lacerating  their  heart-strings,  doom- 
ing fathci-s  and  niothci-s,  sons  and  daughters,  by  millions  upon  millions,  to 
beggary,  degradation,  and  woe.  It  was  time  for  the  j)eo])le  to  rise  at  every 
hazard  and  break  these  chains.     And  while  humanity  must  weep  over  the 


1792.]  THE  KING  LED  TO  TRIAL.  313 

woes  of  Louis  XYI.  and  his  unhappy  household,  humanity  can  not  forget 
that  there  are  other  families  and  other  hearts  who  claim  her  sympathies, 
and  that  this  very  Louis  XVI.  was  at  this  very  time  doing  every  thing  in 
his  power,  by  the  aid  of  the  armies  of  foreign  despots,  to  bring  the  millions 
of  France  again  under  the  sway  of  the  most  merciless  despotism.  And  it 
can  not  be  questioned  that,  had  kings  and  nobles  regained  their  power,  they 
would  have  wreaked  a  more  terrible  vengeance  upon  the  re-enslaved  people 
than  the  people  wreaked  upon  them. 

For  an  hour  the  royal  family  continued  walking  in  the  garden.  From  the 
roofs  of  the  adjacent  houses  and  the  higher  windows  they  could  be  seen. 
Every  day  at  noon  these  roofs  and  windows  were  crowded  by  those  anxious 
to  obtain  a  view  of  the  melancholy  group  of  captives.  Frequently  they 
were  cheered  by  gestures  of  affection  from  unknown  friends.  Tender  words 
were  occasionally  unrolled  in  capital  letters,  or  a  flower  to  which  a  pebble 
was  attached  would  fall  at  their  feet.  These  tokens  of  love,  slight  as  they 
were,  came  as  a  balm  to  their  lacerated  hearts.  So  highly  did  they  prize 
them,  that  regardless  of  rain,  cold,  and  snow,  and  the  intolerable  insults  of 
their  guards,  they  looked  forward  daily  with  eagerness  to  their  garden  walk. 
They  recognized  particular  locahties  as  belonging  to  their  friends,  saying, 
"  such  a  house  is  devoted  to  us  ;  such  a  story  is  for  us ;  such  a  room  is  loyal ; 
such  a  window  friendly." 

At  two  o'clock  the  royal  family  returned  to  the  king's  room,  where  din- 
ner was  served.  After  dinner  the  king  took  a  nap,  while  the  queen,  Mad- 
ame Elizabeth,  and  the  young  princess  employed  themselves  with  their 
needles,  and  the  dauphin  played  some  game  with  Clery,  whose  name  should 
be  transmitted  with  honor  to  posterity  as  faithful  in  misfortune.  When  the 
king  awoke  from  his  nap  he  usually  read  aloud  to  his  family  for  an  hour 
or  two  until  supper-time.  Soon  after  supper,  the  queen,  with  her  children 
and  Madame  Elizabeth,  retired  to  their  rooms  for  the  night.  With  hearts 
bound  together  by  these  terrible  griefs,  they  never  parted  but  with  a  tender 
and  sorrowful  adieu.* 

Such  was  the  monotonous  life  of  the  royal  family  during  the  four  months 
they  occupied  the  Temple  before  the  trial  of  the  king.  But  almost  every 
day  of  their  captivity  some  new  act  of  rigor  was  enforced  upon  them.  As 
the  armies  of  the  Allies  drew  nearer,  and  city  after  city  was  falling  before 
their  bombardments,  and  Paris  was  in  a  phrensy  of  terror,  apprehensions  of 
a  conspiracy  of  the  king  with  the  Eoyalists,  and  of  their  rising  and  aiding 
the  invaders  with  an  outburst  of  civil  war,  led  to  the  adoption  of  precautions 
most  irksome  to  the  captives. 

Municipal  officers  never  allowed  any  member  of  the  royal  family  to  be  out 
of  their  sight,  except  when  they  retired  to  bed  at  night.  They  then  locked 
the  doors,  and  placed  a  bed  against  the  entrance  to  each  apartment,  and  there 
an  officer  slept,  so  as  to  prevent  all  possibility  of  egress.  Every  day  San- 
terre,  commander  of  the  National  Guard,  made  a  visit  of  inspection  to  all  the 

*  The  queen  undressed  the  dauphin,  when  he  repeated  the  following  prayer,  composed  bv  the 
queen  and  remembered  and  recorded  by  her  daughter:  " Almighty  God,  who  created  and  re- 
deemed me,  I  love  you !  Preserve  the  days  of  my  father  and  my  family.  Protect  us  against  our 
enemies.  Give  my  mother,  my  aunt,  my  sister,  the  strength  they  need  to  support  their  troubles." 
—Lainardne,  History  of  the  Girondists,  vol.  ii.,  p.  287. 


314  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [Cttap.  XXX. 

rooms  with  his  staff.  At  first  the  royal  family  had  been  allowed  pen,  ink, 
and  paper,  but  this  privilege  was  soon  withdrawn,  and  at  last  the  cruel  and 
useless  measure  was  adopted  of  taking  from  them  all  sharp  instruments,  such 
as  knives,  scissors,  and  even  needles,  thus  depriving  the  ladies  not  only  of  a 
great  solace,  but  of  the  power  of  repairing  their  decaying  apparel.  It  was 
not  the  intention  of  the  Legislative  Assembly  that  the  royal  fiimily  should 
be  exposed  to  needless  suffering.  Four  hundred  dollars  were  placed  in  their 
hands  at  the  commencement  of  their  captivity  for  their  petty  expenses,  and 
the  Governor  of  the  Temple  was  ordered  to  purchase  for  them  whatever 
they  might  need,  five  hundred  thousand  francs  ($100,000)  having  been  ap- 
propriated by  the  Convention  for  their  expenses.* 

They  were  not  allowed  to  see  the  daily  journals,  which  would  have  in- 
formed them  of  the  triumphant  march  of  the  Allies,  but  occasionally  papers 
were  sent  to  them  which  recorded  the  victories  of  the  Eepublic.  Clery, 
however,  devised  a  very  shrewd  expedient  to  give  them  some  information 
of  the  events  which  were  transpiring.  He  hired  a  newsman  to  pass  daily 
by  the  windows  of  the  Temple,  under  the  pretense  of  selling  newspapers, 
and  to  cry  out  the  principal  details  contained  in  them.  Clery,  while  appar- 
ently busy  about  the  room,  was  always  sure  to  be  near  the  window  at  the 
appointed  hour,  listening  attentively.  At  night,  stooping  over  the  king's 
bed  to  adjust  the  curtains,  he  hastily  whispered  the  news  he  had  thus  gath- 
ered. All  this  required  the  greatest  caution,  for  a  municipal  ofiicer  was 
always  in  the  room,  watching  every  movement. 

Early  in  the  morning  of  the  11th  of  December  all  Paris  was  in  commo- 
tion to  witness  the  trial  of  the  king,  which  was  to  commence  on  that  day. 
The  beating  of  drums  in  the  street,  the  mustering  of  military  squadrons  at 
their  appointed  places  of  rendezvous,  the  clatter  of  hoofs,  and  the  rumbling 
of  artillery  over  the  pavements  penetrated  even  the  gloomy  apartments  of 
the  Temple,  and  fell  appallingly  upon  the  ears  of  the  victims  there. 

The  royal  family  were  at  breakfast  as  they  heard  these  ominous  sounds, 
and  they  earnestly  inquired  the  cause.  After  some  hesitation  the  king  was 
informed  that  the  Mayor  of  Paris  would  soon  come  to  conduct  him  to  his 
trial,  and  that  the  troops  gathering  around  the  Temple  were  to  form  his  es- 
cort, lie  was  also  required  immediately  to  take  leave  of  his  family,  and 
told  that  he  could  not  be  permitted  to  see  them  again  until  after  his  trial. 
Expressions  of  heart-rending  anguish  and  floods  of  tears  accompanied  this 
cruel  separation.  The  king  pleaded  earnestly  and  with  gushing  eyes  that, 
at  least,  he  might  enjoy  the  society  of  his  little  son,  saying, 

♦  ""\Vc  must  not  exnpneriitc  the  faults  of  human  nature,  and  suppose  that,  adJinp  an  cxncrnblc 
meanness  to  the  fury  of  fanaticism,  the  keepers  of  the  imprisoned  family  imposed  on  it  unworthy 
[(fivations,  with  the  intention  of  rendering  the  remembrance  of  its  jiast  greatness  the  nuire  jiain- 
ful.  Distrust  was  the  sole  eause  <.f  certain  refusals.  Thus,  while  the  dread  of  jdots  and  secret 
rommuiiications  j)revented  tlicm  from  admitting  more  than  <mo  attendant  into  the  interior  of  the 
prison,  n  nuuuTous  estalilishiiu-nt  was  emjiloyed  in  preparing  their  food.  Thirteen  jiersons  were 
engaged  in  the  duties  of  the.  kitchen,  situated  at  some  distance  from  the  towor.  The  report  of 
the  expcMisi's  of  the  Tem]ile,  where  the  greatest  decency  is  observed,  where  the  prisoners  are 
mentioned  with  rcsp<(t,  where  their  sobriety  is  commended,  where  Louis  XVL  is  justified  from 
the  low  reproach  of  being  too  much  addicted  to  wiui — these  reports,  which  are  not  liable  to  sus- 
picion, make  the  total  exixiuses  of  the  table  amount  in  two  months  to  28,745  livres  (^5740)."— 
Thiers,  vol.  ii,,  p.  2G. 


1792.]  THE  KING  LED  TO  TRIAL.  3I5 

"  What,  gentlemen !  deprive  me  of  even  the  presence  of  my  son — a  child 
of  seven  years!" 

But  the  commissioners  were  inexorable.  "  The  Commune  thinks,"  said 
they,  "  that,  since  you  are  to  be  au  secret  during  your  trial,  your  son  must 
necessarily  be  confined  either  with  you  or  his  mother ;  and  it  has  imposed 
the  privation  upon  that  parent  who,  from  his  sex  and  courage,  was  best  able 
to  support  it." 

The  queen,  with  the  children  and  Madame  Elizabeth,  were  conducted  to 
the  rooms  below.  The  king,  overwhelmed  with  anguish,  threw  himself  into 
a  chair,  buried  his  face  in  his  hands,  and,  without  uttering  a  word,  remained 
immovable  as  a  statue  for  two  hours.  At  noon  M.  Chambon,*  the  Mayor  of 
Paris,  with  Santerre,  commander  of  the  National  Guard,  and  a  group  of 
officers,  all  wearing  the  tricolored  scarf,  entered  the  king's  chamber. 

Chambon,  with  solemnity  and  with  a  faltering  voice,  informed  the  king 
of  the  painful  object  of  their  mission,  and  summoned  him,  in  the  name  of 
the  Convention,  as  Louis  Capet^  to  appear  before  their  bar. 

"  Gentlemen,"  replied  the  king,  "  Capet  is  not  my  name.  It  is  the  name 
of  one  of  my  ancestors.  I  could  have  wished  that  my  son,  at  least,  had  been 
permitted  to  remain  with  me  during  the  two  hours  I  have  awaited  you. 
However,  this  treatment  is  but  a  part  of  the  system  adopted  toward  me 
throughout  my  captivity.  I  follow  you,  not  in  obedience  to  the  orders  of 
the  Convention,  but  because  my  enemies  are  more  powerful  than  I," 

Immediately  rising,  he  put  on  his  great-coat,  took  his  hat,  and,  following 
the  mayor,  and  followed  by  the  staff  of  officers,  descended  the  stairs  of  the 
tower. 

Before  the  massive  portal  of  the  Temple  the  carriage  of  the  mayor  was 
drawn  up,  surrounded  by  a  guard  of  six  hundred  picked  men.  A  numer- 
ous detachment  of  cavalry,  as  an  advance-guard,  dragging  six  pieces  of  can- 
non, led  the  melancholy  procession  which  was  conducting  a  monarch  to  the 
judgment-bar  and  to  death.  A  similar  body  of  cavalry  followed  in  the  rear 
with  three  pieces  of  cannon.  These  precautions  were  deemed  necessary  to 
guard  against  any  possible  rescue  by  the  loyalists.  Every  soldier  was  sup- 
plied with  sixteen  rounds  of  cartridges,  and  the  battalions  marched  in  such 
order  that  they  could  instantly  form  in  line  of  battle.  The  National  Guard 
lined  the  streets  through  which  they  passed,  one  hundred  thousand  men  be- 
ing under  arms  in  Paris  that  day. 

The  cavalcade  passed  slowlj^  along  the  Boulevards.  The  house-tops,  the 
windows,  the  side-walks,  were  thronged  with  countless  thousands.  The 
king,  deprived  of  his  razor,  had  been  unable  to  shave,  and  his  face  was  cov- 
ered with  shaggy  hair;  his  natural  corpulence,  wasted  away  by  imprison- 
ment, caused  his  garments  to  hang  loose  and  flabby  about  him  ;  his  features 
were  wan  through  anxiety  and  suffering.     Thus,  unfortunately,  every  thing 

*  "  M.  Chambon,  the  successor  of  Bailly  and  Fetion,  was  a  learned  and  hnmiinc  physician, 
whom  public  esteem  rather  than  Revolutionary  favor  had  raised  to  the  dignity  of  the  tirst  mag- 
istrate of  Paris.  Of  modere  principles,  kind  and  warm-hearted,  accustomed,  by  his  profession,  to 
sympathize  with  the  unfortunate,  compelled  to  execute  orders  repugnant  to  his  feelings,  the  pity 
(if  the  man  was  visible  beneath  the  inflexibility  of  the  magistrate." — Lamartine,  Hist,  des  Giron- 
distes,  vol.  ii.,  p.  321. 


316  TUE  FRENCU  EEVOLUTION.  [ClIAP.  XXX. 

in  his  personal  appearance  combined  to  present  an  aspect  exciting  disgust 
and  repulsion  rather  than  sympathy.  The  procession  passed  down  the  Place 
Vendomc  and  thence  to  the  Monastery  of  the  Feuillants.  The  king  alighted. 
Santerre  took  his  arm  and  led  him  to  the  bar  of  the  Convention.  There 
was  a  moment  of  profound  silence.  All  were  awe-stricken  by  the  solemnity 
of  the  scene.     The  president,  Barrere,*  broke  the  silence,  saying, 

"  Citizens !  Louis  Capet  is  before  you.  The  eyes  of  Europe  are  upon  you. 
Posterity  will  judge  you  with  inflexible  severity.  Preserve,  then,  the  dig- 
nity and  the  dispassionate  coolness  befitting  judges.  You  are  about  to  give 
a  great  lesson  to  kings,  a  great  and  useful  example  to  nations.  Recollect 
the  awful  silence  which  accompanied  Louis  from  Varennes — a  silence  that 
was  the  precursor  of  the  judgment  of  kings  by  the  people."  Then,  turning 
to  the  king,  Barrere  said,  "  Louis,  the  French  nation  accuses  you.  Be  seat- 
ed, and  listen  to  the  Act  of  Accusation."  It  was  then  two  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon. 

The  formidable  indictment  was  read.  The  king  was  held  personally,  re- 
sponsible for  all  the  acts  of  hostility  to  popular  liberty  which  had  occurred 
under  his  reign.  A  minute,  truthful,  impartial  recapitulation  of  those  acts, 
which  we  have  recorded  in  the  previous  pages,  constituted  the  accusation. 
The  king  listened  attentively  to  the  reading,  and  without  any  apparent  emo- 
tion. The  accusation  consisted  of  fifty-seven  distinct  charges.  As  they 
were  slowly  read  over,  one  by  one,  the  president  paused  after  each  and  said 
to  the  king,  "  What  have  you  to  answer?"  But  two  courses  consistent  with 
kingly  dignity  were  open  for  the  accused.  The  one  was  to  refuse  any  repl}' 
and  to  take  shelter  in  the  inviolability  with  which  the  Constitution  had  in- 
vested him.  The  other  was  boldly  to  avow  that  he  had  adopted  the  meas- 
ures of  which  he  was  accused,  believing  it  to  be  essential  to  the  welfare  of 
France  that  the  headlong  progress  of  the  Eevolution  should  be  checked. 
Neither  would  have  saved  his  life,  but  either  would  have  rescued  his  mem- 
ory from  much  reproach.  But  the  king,  cruelly  deprived  of  all  counsel 
with  his  friends,  dragged  unexpectedly  to  his  trial,  and  overwhelmed  with 
such  a  catalogue  of  accusations,  unfortunately  adopted  the  worst  possible 
course.  The  blame  of  some  of  the  acts  he  threw  upon  his  ministers ;  some 
facts  he  denied  ;  and  in  other  cases  he  not  only  prevaricated  but  stooped  to 
palpable  falsehood.  When  we  reflect  upon  the  weak  nature  of  the  king  and 
the  confusion  of  mind  incident  to  an  hour  of  such  terrible  trial,  we  must 
judge  the  unhappy  monarch  leniently.  But  when  the  king  denied  even  the 
existence  of  the  iron  chest  which  the  Convention  had  already  found,  and 
had  obtained  proof  to  demonstration  that  he  himself  had  closed  u]->,  and 
wlien  he  denied  complicity  with  the  Allies,  proofs  of  wliich,  in  his  own  hand- 
writing, were  found  in  tlic  iron  safe,  it  is  not  strange  that  the  effect  should 
have  been  exceedingly  unfavorable  to  his  dcfense.f 

*  "Bnrrero  escnpc-d  (lurinR  tho  difforont  ebullitions  of  the  Rorolntion  bpcausc  he  wns  n  man. 
without  principle  or  chnrmtcr,  who  chnnjroil  ami  a<lnj>tcd  himself  to  cvcrj-  side.  lie  had  the  rep- 
utation of  heinc  a  man  of  talent,  hut  I  did  not  fmd  him  sueh.  I  employed  him  to  write,  hut  he 
disphiycd  no  ability.  He  used  many  flowers  of  rhetoric,  but  no  solid  argument."— AV/i'<"»  at 
St.  llflmn. 

t  Oamain,  the  loeksmith.  who  for  ten  years  had  worked  for  and  with  the  kinp.  and  who  had 
oided  him  in  constructing  thU  iron  safe,  basely  betrayed  tho  secret.     The  papers  were  all  seized 


1792.J 


THE  KING  LED  TO  TRIAL. 


3i: 


DISCOVEKY   OF   TUB  IKON   SAFE. 


This  interrogation  was  continued  for  tliree  liours,  at  the  close  of  which 
the  king,  who  had  eaten  nothing  since  his  interrupted  breakfast,  was  so  ex- 
hausted that  he  could  hardly  stand.  Santerre  then  conducted  him  into  an 
adjoining  committee-room.  Before  withdrawing,  however,  the  king  de- 
manded a  copy  of  the  accusation,  and  counsel  to  assist  him  in  his  defense. 
In  the  committee-room  the  king  saw  a  man  eating  from  a  small  loaf  of 
bread.  Faint  with  hunger,  the  monarch  approached  the  man,  and,  in  a 
whisper,  implored  a  morsel  for  himself. 

"Ask  aloud,"  said  the  man,  retreating,  "for  what  you  want."  He  feared 
that  he  should  be  suspected  of  some  secret  conspiracy  with  the  king. 

"I  am  hungry,"  said  Louis  XVI.,  "and  ask  for  a  piece  of  your  bread." 

"  Divide  it  with  me,"  said  the  man.  "  It  is  a  Spartan  breakfast.  If  I  had 
a  root  I  would  give  you  half" 

The  king  entered  the  carriage  eating  his  crust.  The  same  cavalcade  as 
in  the  morning  preceded  and  accompanied  him.  The  same  crowds  thronged 
the  streets  and  every  point  of  observation.  A  few  brutal  wretches,  insult- 
ing helplessness,  shouted  Vive  la  Revolution !  and  now  and  then  a  stanza 
of  the  Marseillaise  Hymn  fell  painfully  upon  his  ear.  Chambon,  the  mayor, 
and  Chaumette,  the  public  prosecutor,  were  in  the  carriage  with  the  king. 

and  intrusted  by  the  Convention  to  a  committee  of  twelve,  who  were  to  examine  and  report  upon 
them.  This  Judas  received,  as  his  reward  from  the  Convention,  a  pension  of  tno  hundred  and 
forty  dollars  a  year.     See  France  and  its  Revolutions,  by  Geo.  Long,  Esq.,  p.  241. 


318  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [CUAP.  XXXI. 

Louis,  having  eaten  a.s  much  of  the  half  loaf  of  bread  as  he  needed,  had  still 
a  fragment  in  his  hand. 

''  What  shall  I  do  with  it?"  inquired  the  simple-hearted  monarch.  Chau- 
mette  relieved  him  of  his  embarrassment  by  tossing  it  out  of  the  window. 

"Ah,"  said  the  king,  " it  is  a  pity  to  throw  bread  away  wheu  it  is  so 
dear." 

"  True,"  replied  Chaumette ;  "  my  grandmother  used  to  say  to  me,  '  Lit- 
tle bo}'-,  never  waste  a  crumb  of  bread ;  you  can  not  make  one.'  "* 

"Monsieur  Chaumette,"  Louis  rejoined,  "your  grandmother  appears  to 
me  to  have  been  a  woman  of  great  good  sense." 

It  was  half-past  six  o'clock,  and  the  gloom  of  night  enveloped  the  Tem- 
ple, when  Louis  was  again  conducted  up  the  stairs  of  the  tower  to  his  dis- 
mal cell.  He  piteously  implored  permission  again  to  see  his  family.  But 
Chambon  dared  not  grant  his  request  in  disobedience  to  the  commands  of 
the  Commune. 

The  most  frivolous  things  often  develop  character.  It  is  on  record  that 
the  toils  and  griefs  of  the  day  had  not  impaired  the  appetite  of  the  king,  and 
that  he  ate  for  supper  that  night  "  six  cutlets,  a  considerable  portion  of  a 
fowl,  two  eggs,  and  drank  two  glasses  of  white  wine  and  one  of  Alicante 
wine,  and  forthwith  went  to  bed."f 

During  these  dreadful  hours  the  queen,  with  Madame  Elizabeth  and  the 
children,  were  in  a  state  of  agonizing  suspense,  not  even  knowing  but  that 
the  king  was  being  led  to  his  execution.  Clery,  however,  late  in  the  even- 
ing, went  to  their  room  and  informed  them  of  all  the  details  he  had  been 
able  to  gather  respecting  the  king's  examination. 

"  lias  any  mention  been  made  of  the  queen  ?"  asked  Madame  Elizabeth. 
"  Iler  name  was  not  mentioned,"  Clery  replied,  "in  the  act  of  accusation." 

"  Ah,"  rejoined  the  princess,  "  perhaps  they  demand  my  brother's  life  as 
necessary  for  their  safety ;  but  the  queen — these  poor  children — what  obsta- 
cle can  their  lives  present  to  their  ambition  ?" 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 

EXECUTION   OF   LOUIS  XVI. 


Close  of  tlie  Examination. — The  King's  Counsel. — Heroism  of  Malcshcrbcs. — Preparations  for 
Defen-t!.— Gratitude  of  the  Kinp;.— The  Trial.— Protracted  Vote.— The  Result.— Tiic  Kinp 
solicius  the  Delay  of  Execution  for  three  Days. — Last  Interview  with  his  Family. — Preparation 
for  Death.— The  Execution. 

As  soon  as  the  king  had  witlidrawn  from  the  Assembly,  that  body  was 
thrown  into  great  tumult  in  consequence  of  the  application  of  Louis  for  the 
a.'^si.stance  of  coun.scl.  It  wa.s,  however,  after  an  animated  debate,  which 
continued  until  the  next  day,  voted  that  the  request  of  the  king  should  be 
granted,  and  a  deputation  was  immediately  sent  to  inform  tlie  king  of  the 
vote,  and  to  ask  what  counsel  he  would  choose.  He  selected  two  of  the 
most  eminent  lawyers  of  Paris— M.  Tronehet  and  M.  Target.     Tronchet  he- 

♦  Hist.  Pari.,  vol.  xxl.,  p.  .114. 

+  U<5»um«i  du  Uaj.iHjrt  du  Commissairc  Alberticr,  Hist.  Pari.,  vol.  xxi.,  p.  319. 


1792.]  EXECUTION  OF  LOUIS  XYI.  819 

roically  accej)ted  the  perilous  commission.  Target,  with  pusillanimity  which 
has  consigned  his  name  to  disgrace,  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Convention  stating 
that  his  principles  would  not  allow  him  to  undertake  the  defense  of  the 
king.*  The  venerable  Malesherbes,  then  seventy  years  of  age,  immediately 
wrote  a  letter  to  the  president,  imploring  permission  to  assume  the  defense 
of  the  monarch.  This  distinguished  statesman,  a  friend  of  monarchy  and  a 
personal  friend  of  the  monarch,  had  been  living  in  the  retirement  of  his 
country-seat,  and  had  taken  no  part  in  the  Revolution.  By  permission  of 
the  Commune  he  was  conducted,  after  he  had  been  carefully  searched,  to  the 
Temple.  With  a  faltering  step  he  entered  the  prison  of  the  king.  Louis 
XYI.  was  seated  reading  Tacitus.  The  king  immediately  arose,  threw  his 
arms  around  Malesherbes  in  a  cordial  embrace,  and  said, 

"  Ah,  is  it  you,  my  friend !  In  what  a  situation  do  you  find  me !  See  to 
what  my  passion  for  the  amelioration  of  the  state  of  the  people,  whom  we 
have  both  loved  so  much,  has  reduced  me !  Why  do  you  come  hither  ? 
Your  devotion  only  endangers  your  life  and  can  not  save  mine." 

Malesherbes,  with  eyes  full  of  tears,  endeavored  to  cheer  the  king  with 
words  of  hope. 

"  No !"  replied  the  monarch,  sadly.  "  They  will  condemn  me,  for  they 
possess  both  the  power  and  the  will.  No  matter ;  let  us  occupy  ourselves 
with  the  cause  as  if  we  were  to  gain  it.  I  shall  gain  it  in  fact,  since  I  shall 
leave  no  stain  upon  my  memory." 

The  two  defenders  of  the  king  were  permitted  to  associate  w^ith  them  a 
third,  M.  Deseze,  an  advocate  who  had  attained  much  renown  in  his  pro- 
fession. For  a  fortnight  they  were  employed  almost  night  and  day  in  pre- 
paring for  the  defense.  Malesherbes  came  every  morning  with  the  daily 
papers,  and  prepared  for  the  labors  of  the  evening.  At  five  o'clock  Tron- 
chet  and  Deseze  came,  and  they  all  worked  together  until  nine. 

In  the  mean  time  the  king  wrote  his  will ;  a  very  affecting  document, 
breathing  in  every  line  the  spirit  of  a  Christian.  He  also  succeeded  in  so 
far  eluding  the  vigilance  of  his  keepers  as  to  open  a  slight  correspondence 
with  his  family.  The  queen  pricked  a  message  with  a  pin  upon  a  scrap  of 
paper,  and  then  concealed  the  paper  in  a  ball  of  thread,  which  was  dropped 
into  a  drawer  in  the  kitchen,  where  Clery  took  it  and  conveyed  it  to  his 
master.  An  answer  was  returned  in  a  similar  way.  It  was  but  an  unsatis- 
factory correspondence  which  could  thus  be  carried  on ;  but  even  this  was 
an  unspeakable  solace  to  the  captives. 

At  length  the  plan  of  defense  was  completed.  Malesherbes  and  the  king 
had  furnished  the  facts,  Tronchet  and  Deseze  had  woven  them  all  into  an 
exceedingly  eloquent  and  affecting  appeal.  Deseze  read  it  aloud  to  the 
king  and  his  associates.  The  pathetic  picture  he  drew  of  the  vicissitudes  of 
the  royal  family  was  so  touching  that  even  Malesherbes  and  Tronchet  could 
not  refrain  from  weeping,  and  tears  fell  from  the  eyes  of  the  king.     At  the 

*  One  of  Napoleon's  first  acts  upon  becoming  First  Consul  was  to  show  his  appreciation  of 
the  heroism  of  Tronchet  by  placing  him  at  the  head  of  the  Com-t  of  Cassation.  "Tronchet,"  he 
said,  "was  the  soul  of  the  civil  code,  as  I  was  its  demonstrator.  He  was  gifted  with  a  singularly 
lirofound  and  correct  understanding,  but  he  could  not  descend  to  developments.  He  spoke  badly, 
•and  could  not  defend  what  he  proposed." — Napoleon  at  St. Helena,  p.  192. 


320  THE  FRENCn  REVOLUTION.  [ClIAP.  XXXI. 

close  of  the  reading,  the  king  turned  to  Deseze,  and,  in  the  spirit  of  true 
majesty  of  soul,  said, 

"  I  have  to  request  of  you  to  make  a  painful  sacrifice.  Strike  out  of  your 
pleading  the  peroration.  It  is  enough  for  me  to  appear  before  such  judges 
and  show  my  entire  innocence.     I  will  not  move  their  feelings."* 

Desdze  was  very  reluctant  to  accede  to  this  request,  but  was  constrained 
to  yield.  After  Tronchct  and  Des(^ze  had  retired  that  night,  the  king,  left 
alone  with  Malesherbes,  seemed  to  be  troubled  with  some  engrossing  thought 
At  last  he  said, 

"  I  have  now  a  new  source  of  regret.  Deseze  and  Tronchct  owe  me  noth- 
ing. They  devote  to  me  their  time,  exertions,  and  perhaps  their  life.  How 
can  I  requite  them  ?  I  possess  nothing ;  and  were  I  to  leave  them  a  legacy 
it  would  not  be  paid  ;  besides,  what  fortune  could  repay  such  a  debt?" 


^iri  iiillliil 


"Sire,"  replied  Malesherbes,  "their  consciences  and  posterity  will  reward 
them.  But  it  is  in  your  power  to  grant  them  a  fiivor  they  will  esteem  more 
than  all  those  you  had  it  in  your  power  to  bestow  upon  them  formcrlv." 

"  What  is  it  ?"  added  the  king. 

"  Sire,  embrace  them,"  Malesherl:)cs  replied. 

The  next  day,  when  they  entered  his  chamber,  the  king  approached  them 
and  pressed  each  to  his  heart  in  silence.  Tliis  toucliing  testimonial  of  the 
king's  gratitude,  and  of  his  impoverishment,  was  to  the  noble  hearts  of  these 
noble  men  an  ample  remuneration  for  all  their  toil  and  peril. 

The  2Gtli  of  December  had  now  arrived,  the  day  appointed  for  the  final 
trial.  At  an  early  hour  all  Paris  was  in  commotion,  and  the  whole  militar}- 
force  of  the  metropolis  was  again  marshaled.  The  sublimity  of  the  occasion 
seemed  to  have  elevated  the  character  of  the  king  to  unusual  dignity.     Ue 

♦  Lncrctclle. 


1792.]  EXECUTION  OF  LOUIS  XVI.  321 

was  neatly  dressed,  his  beard  shaved,  and  his  features  were  serene  and  al- 
most majestic  in  their  expression  of  imperturbable  resignation.  As  he  rode 
m  the  carriage  with  Chambon,  the  mayor,  and  Santerre,  the  commander  of 
the  National  Guard,  he  conversed  cheerfully  upon  a  variety  of  topics.  San- 
terre, regardless  of  the  etiquette  which  did  not  allow  a  subject  to  wear  his 
hat  in  the  presence  of  his  monarch,  sat  with  his  hat  on.  The  king  turned 
to  him,  and  said,  with  a  smile, 

"  The  last  time,  sir,  you  conveyed  me  to  the  Temple,  in  your  hurry  you 
forgot  your  hat ;  and  now,  I  perceive,  you  are  determined  to  make  up  for 
the  omission." 

On  entering  the  Convention  the  king  took  his  seat  by  the  side  of  his  coun- 
sel, and  listened  with  intense  interest  to  the  reading  of  his  defense,  watching 
the  countenances  of  his  judges  to  see  the  effect  it  was  producing  upon  their 
minds.  Occasionally  he  whispered,  and  even  with  a  smile,  to  Malesherbes 
and  Tronchet.     The  Convention  received  the  defense  in  profound  silence. 

The  defense  consisted  of  three  leading  divisions.  First,  it  was  argued 
that  by  the  Constitution  the  king  was  inviolable,  and  not  responsible  for  the 
acts  of  the  crown — that  the  Ministers  alone  were  responsible.  He  secondly 
argued  that  the  Convention  had  no  right  to  try  the  king,  for  the  Convention 
were  his  accusers,  and,  consequently,  could  not  act  as  his  judges.  Thirdly, 
while  protesting,  as  above,  the  inviolability  of  the  king,  and  the  invalidity 
of  the  Convention  to  judge  him,  he  then  proceeded  to  the  discussion  of  the 
individual  charges.  Some  of  the  charges  were  triumphantly  repelled,  par- 
ticularly that  of  shedding  French  blood  on  the  10th  of  August.  It  was 
clearly  proved  that  the  people,  not  Louis  XVI.,  were  the  aggressors.  As 
soon  as  Deseze  had  finished  his  defense,  the  king  himself  rose  and  said,  in  a 
few  words  which  he  had  written  and  committed  to  memory, 

"  You  have  heard  the  grounds  of  my  defense.  I  shall  not  repeat  them. 
In  addressing  you,  perhaps  for  the  last  time,  I  declare  that  my  conscience 
reproaches  me  with  nothing,  and  that  my  defenders  have  told  you  the  truth. 
I  have  never  feared  to  have  my  public  conduct  scrutinized.  But  I  am 
grieved  to  find  that  I  am  accused  of  wishing  to  shed  the  blood  of  my  people, 
and  that  the  misfortunes  of  the  10th  of  August  are  laid  to  my  charge.  I 
confess  that  the  numerous  proofs  I  have  always  given  of  my  love  for  the 
people  ought  to  have  placed  me  above  this  reproach." 

He  resumed  his  seat.  The  President  then  asked  if  he  had  any  thing  more 
to  say.  He  declared  he  had  not,  and  retired  with  his  counsel  from  the  hall. 
As  he  was  conducted  back  to  the  Temple,  he  conversed  with  the  same  se- 
renity he  had  manifested  throughout  the  whole  day.  It  was  five  o'clock, 
and  the  gloom  of  night  was  descending  upon  the  city  as  he  re-entered  his 
prison. 

No  sooner  had  the  king  left  the  hall  than  a  violent  tumult  of  debate  com- 
menced, which  was  continued,  day  after  day,  with  a  constant  succession  of 
eager,  agitated  speakers  hurrying  to  the  tribune,  for  twelve  days.  Some 
were  in  favor  of  an  immediate  judgment,  some  were  for  referring  the  ques- 
tion to  the  people  ;  some  demanded  the  death  of  the  king,  others  imprison- 
ment or  exile.  On  the  7th  of  January  all  seemed  weary  of  these  endless 
speeches,  and  the  endless  repetition  of  the  same  arguments.     Stdl,  there 

X 


322  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXXI. 

were  many  clamorous  to  be  heard  ;  and,  after  a  violent  contest,  it  was  voted 
that  the  decisive  measure  should  be  postponed  for  a  week  longer,  and  that 
on  the  1-ith  of  January  the  question  should  be  taken. 

The  fatal  day  arrived.  It  was  decreed  that  the  subject  should  be  pre- 
sented to  the  Convention  in  the  three  following  questions :  First,  Is  Louis 
guilty  ?  Second,  Shall  the  decision  of  the  Convention  be  submitted  to  the 
ratification  of  the  people  ?  The  whole  of  the  15th  was  occupied  in  taking 
these  two  votes.  Louis  was  unanimously  pronounced  to  be  guilty,  with  the 
exception  of  ten  who  refused  to  vote,  declaring  themselves  incapable  of  act- 
ing both  as  accusers  and  judges.  On  the  question  of  an  appeal  to  the  people, 
281  voices  were  for  it,  423  against  it.''^  And  now  came  the  third  great  and 
solemn  question,  "What  shall  be  the  sentence  ?  Each  member  was  required 
to  write  his  vote,  sign  it,  and  then,  before  depositing  it,  to  ascend  the  tribune 
and  give  it  audibly,  with  any  remarks  which  he  might  wish  to  add. 

The  voting  commenced  at  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening  of  the  16th,  and 
continued  all  night,  and  without  any  interruption,  for  twenty-four  hours. 
All  Paris  was  during  the  time  in  the  highest  state  of  excitement,  the  gal- 
leries of  the  Convention  being  crowded  to  suffocation.  Some  voted  for 
death,  others  for  imprisonment  until  peace  with  allied  Europe,  and  then 
banishment.  Others  voted  for  death,  with  the  restriction  that  the  execution 
should  be  delayed.  They  wished  to  save  the  king,  and  yet  feared  the  accu- 
sation of  being  Eoyalists  if  they  did  not  vote  for  his  death.  The  Jacobins 
all  voted  for  death.  They  had  accused  their  opponents,  the  Girondists,  of 
being  secretly  in  favor  of  royality,  and  as  such  had  held  them  up  to  the  exe- 
cration of  the  mob.  The  Girondists  wished  to  save  the  king.  It  was  in 
their  power  to  save  him.  But  it  required  more  courage,  both  moral  and 
physical,  than  ordinary  men  possess,  to  brave  the  vengeance  of  the  assassins 
of  September  who  were  hovering  around  the  hall. 

It  was  pretty  well  understood  in  the  Convention  that  the  fate  of  the  king 
depended  upon  the  Girondist  vote,  and  it  was  not  doubted  that  the  party 
would  vote  as  did  their  leader.  It  was  a  moment  of  fearful  solemnity  when 
Vergniaud  ascended  the  tribune.  Breathless  silence  pervaded  the  Assembly. 
Every  eye  was  fixed  upon  him.  His  countenance  was  pallid  as  that  of  a 
corpse.  For  a  moment  he  paused,  -wdth  downcast  eyes,  as  if  hesitating  to 
pronounce  the  dreadful  word.  Then,  in  a  gloomy  tone  which  thrilled  the 
hearts  of  all  present,  he  said,  Death.f  Neariy  all  the  Girondists  voted  for 
death,  with  the  restriction  of  delaying  the  execution.     Many  of  the  purest 

•  Lnmartinc,  History  of  the  Girondists,  vol.  ii.,  p.  342. 

+  "Tiio  crowd  in  tlic  pallerios  received  with  murmurs  all  votes  that  were  not  for  death,  and 
ihoy  fror|ucntly  nddres.sed  thrcateninR  gestures  to  the  Assembly  itself.  The  deputies  rei)lied  to 
them  from  the  interior  of  the  hall,  and  hence  resulted  a  tumultuous  exchange  of  menaces  and 
abusive  epithets.  This  fearfully  ominous  scene  had  shaken  all  minds  and  chanped  manv  resolu- 
tions. VerRniaud,  who  had  appeared  dcei.ly  affected  bv  the  fate  of  Louis  XVL,  and  who  had 
declared  to  his  friends  that  he  never  could  condenm  that  unfortunate  prince,  Verpniaud.  on  bc- 
holdmp  this  tumultuous  scene,  imagined  that  he  saw  civil  war  kindled  in  France,  and  j.ronounccd 
sentence  of  death,  witli  the  addition,  however,  of  iMailhe's  amendment  (which  required  tliat  tho 
execution  should  be  deiayc.l).  On  b-ing  questioned  resi)ecting  hU  change  of  oianion,  he  replied 
that  ho  thought  he  saw  <ivil  war  on  the  jmint  of  breaking  out,  and  that  ho  durst  not  balance  the 
hfe  of  an  individual  against  the  welfare  of  France."— T/ieirs's  Utstory  of  the  French  Jiaolutlon, 
•vol.  ij.,  p.  C«.  J  J  y 


1793.]  EXECUTION  OF  LOUIS  XVI.  323 

men  in  tlie  nation  thus  voted,  with  emotions  of  sadness  which  could  not  be 
repressed.  The  noble  Carnot  gave  his  vote  in  the  following  terms  :  "  Death ; 
and  never  did  word  weigh  so  heavily  on  my  heart." 

When  the  Duke  of  Orleans  was  called,  deep  silence  ensued.  He  was 
cousin  of  the  king,  and  first  prince  of  the  blood.  By  birth  and  opulence  he 
stood  on  the  highest  pinnacle  of  aristocratic  supremacy.  Conscious  of  peril, 
he  had  for  a  long  time  done  every  thing  in  his  power  to  conciliate  the  mob 
by  adopting  the  most  radical  of  Jacobin  opinions.  The  Duke,  bloated  with 
the  debaucheries  which  had  disgraced  his  life,  ascended  the  steps  slowly,  un- 
folded a  paper,  and  read  in  heartless  tones  these  words : 

"  Solely  occupied  with  my  duty,  convinced  that  all  who  have  attempted, 
or  shall  attempt  hereafter,  the  sovereignty  of  the  people,  merit  death,  I  vote 
for  death." 

The  atrocity  of  this  act  excited  the  abhorrence  of  the  Assembly,  and  loud 
murmurs  of  disapprobation  followed  the  prince  to  his  seat.  Even  Eobes- 
pierre  despised  his  pusillanimity,  and  said, 

"  The  miserable  man  was  only  required  to  listen  to  his  own  heart,  and 
make  himself  an  exception.  But  he  would  not  or  dare  not  do  so.  The  na- 
tion would  have  been  more  magnanimous  than  he."* 

At  length  the  long  scrutiny  was  over,  and  Vergniaud,  who  had  presided, 
rose  to  announce  the  result.  He  was  pale  as  death,  and  it  was  observed  that 
not  only  his  voice  faltered,  but  that  his  whole  frame  trembled, 

"Citizens,"  said  he,  "you  are  about  to  exercise  a  great  act  of  justice.  I 
hope  humanity  will  enjoin  you  to  keep  the  most  perfect  silence.  When  jus- 
tice has  spoken  humanity  ought  to  be  listened  to  in  its  turn." 

He  then  read  the  results  of  the  vote.  There  were  seven  hundred  and 
twenty-one  voters  in  the  Convention.  Three  hundred  and  thirty-four  voted 
for  imprisonment  or  exile,  three  hundred  and  eighty-seven  for  death,  includ- 
ing those  who  voted  that  the  execution  should  be  delayed.  Thus  the  ma- 
jority for  death  was  fifty-three ;  but  as  of  these  forty-six  demanded  a'sus- 
pension  of  the  execution,  there  remained  but  a  majority  of  seven  for  imme- 
diate death.  Having  read  this  result, Vergniaud,  in  a  sorrowful  tone,  said, 
"I  declare,  in  the  name  of  the  Convention,  that  the  punishment  pronounced 
against  Louis  Capet  is  death."f 

*  "  Eobespierre  was  by  no  means  the  worst  character  who  figured  in  the  Revolution.  He  op- 
posed trying  the  queen.  He  was  not  an  atheist ;  on  the  contrary,  he  had  publicly  maintained  the 
existence  of  a  Supreme  Being,  in  opposition  to  many  of  his  colleagues.  Neither  was  he  of  opin- 
ion that  it  was  necessary  to  exterminate  all  priests  and  nobles,  like  many  others.  Robespierre 
wanted  to  proclaim  the  king  an  outlaw,  and  not  to  go  through  the  ridiculous  mockery  of  trying 
him.  Robespierre  was  a  fanatic,  a  monster ;  but  he  was  incorruptible,  and  incapable  of  robbing 
or  of  causing  the  deaths  of  others,  either  from  personal  enmity  or  a  desire  of  enriching  himself. 
He  was  an  enthusiast,  but  one  who  really  believed  that  he  was  acting  right,  and  died  not  worth  a 
sou.  In  some  respects  Robespierre  may  be  said  to  have  been  an  honest  man." — Napoleon  at  St. 
Helena,  p.  590. 

t  "  Of  those  who  judged  the  king  many  thought  him  willfully  criminal ;  many  that  his  exist- 
ence would  keep  the  nation  in  perpetual  conflict  with  the  horde  of  kings  who  would  war  against 
a  generation  which  might  come  home  to  themselves,  and  that  it  were  better  that  one  should  die 
than  all.  I  should  not  have  voted  with  this  portion  of  the  Legislature.  I  should  have  shut  up 
the  queen  in  a  convent,  putting  harm  out  of  her  power,  and  placed  the  king  in  his  station,  invest- 
ing him  with  limited  powers,  which  I  verily  believe  he  would  honestly  have  exercised,  according 
to  the  measure  of  his  understanding." — Thomas  Jefferson,  Life  by  Randall,  vol.  i.,  p.  533.  There 
were  obviously  insuperable  objections  to  the  plan  thus  suggested  by  Mr.  Jefferson. 


324  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ClIAF.  XXXI. 

The  counsel  of  Louis  XVI.,  who,  during  the  progress  of  the  vote,  had 
urged  permission  to  speak,  but  were  refused,  were  now  introduced.  In  the 
name  of  the  king,  Deseze  appealed  to  the  people  from  the  judgment  of  the 
Convention.  He  urged  the  appeal  from  the  very  small  majority  which  had 
decided  the  penalty.  Tronchet  urged  that  the  penal  code  required  a  vote 
of  two  thirds  to  consign  one  to  punishment,  and  that  the  king  ought  not  to 
be  deprived  of  a  privilege  which  every  subject  enjoyed.  Malesherbes  en- 
deavored to  speak,  but  was  so  overcome  with  emotion  that,  violently  sob- 
bing, he  was  unable  to  continue  his  speech,  and  was  compelled  to  sit  down. 
His  gray  hairs  and  his  tears  so  moved  the  Assembly  that  Vergniaud  rose, 
and,  addressing  the  Assembly,  said,  "  Will  you  decree  the  honors  of  the  sit- 
ting to  the  defenders  of  Louis  XVI.  ?"  The  unanimous  response  was, "  Yes, 
yes." 

It  was  now  late  at  night,  and  the  Convention  adjourned.  The  whole  of 
the  18th  and  the  19  th  were  occupied  in  discussing  the  question  of  the  appeal 
to  the  people.  On  the  20th,  at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning,  the  final  vote 
was  taken.  Three  hundred  and  ten  voted  to  sustain  the  appeal ;  three  hund- 
red and  eighty  for  immediate  death.  All  the  efforts  to  save  the  king  were 
now  exhausted,  and  his  fate  was  sealed.  A  deputation  was  immediately  ap- 
pointed, headed  by  Garat,  Minister  of  Justice,  to  acquaint  Louis  XVI.  with 
the  decree  of  the  Convention. 

At  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  the  20th,  Louis  heard  the  noise  of  a  nu- 
merous party  ascending  the  steps  of  the  tower.  As  they  entered  his  apart- 
ment he  rose  and  stepped  forward  with  perfect  calmness  and  dignity  to  meet 
them.  The  decree  of  the  Convention  was  read  to  the  king,  declaring  him  to 
be  guilty  of  treason,  that  he  was  condemned  to  death,  that  the  appeal  to  the 
people  was  refused,  and  that  he  was  to  be  executed  within  twenty-four  houi-s. 
The  king  listened  to  the  reading  unmoved,  took  the  paper  from  the  hands 
of  the  secretary,  folded  it  carefully,  and  placed  it  in  his  port-folio.  Then 
turning  to  Garat,  he  handed  him  a  paper,  saying, 

'•  Monsieur  Minister  of  Justice,  I  request  you  to  deliver  this  letter  to  the 
Convention." 

Garat  hesitated  to  take  the  paper,  and  the  king  immediately  rejoined,  "  I 
will  read  it  to  you,"  and  read,  in  a  distinct,  unfoltcring  voice,  as  follows : 

"  I  demand  of  the  Convention  a  delay  of  three  days,  in  order  to  prepare 
myself  to  appear  before  God.  I  require,  farther,  to  see  freely  the  priest  whom 
I  shall  name  to  the  commissaries  of  the  Commune,  and  that  he  be  protected 
in  the  act  of  charity  which  he  shall  exercise  toward  me.  I  demand  to  be 
freed  from  the  perpetual  surveillance  which  has  been  exercised  toward  me 
for  so  many  days.  I  demand,  during  these  last  moments,  leave  to  see  my 
family,  when  I  desire  it,  without  witnesses.  I  desire  most  earnestly  that  the 
Convention  will  at  once  take  into  consideration  the  i)ite  of  my  family,  and 
that  they  be  allowed  immediately  to  retire  unmolested  whithersoever  they 
shall  sec  fit  to  choose  an  asylum.  I  recommend  to  the  kindness  of  the  na- 
tion all  the  persons  attached  to  me.  There  are  among  them  many  old  men, 
and  women,  ami  children,  who  are  entirely  di'pendent  upon  me,  and  must 
be  in  want." 

The  delegation  retired.     The  king,  with  a  Uriu  step,  walked  two  or  three 


1793.]  EXECUTION  OF  LOUIS  XVI.  325 

times  up  and  down  his  chamber,  and  then  called  for  his  dinner.  He  sat 
down  and  ate  with  his  usual  appetite ;  but  his  attendants  refused  to  let  him 
have  either  knife  or  fork,  and  he  was  furnished  only  with  a  spoon.  This  ex- 
cited his  indignation,  and  he  said,  warmly, 

"  Do  they  think  that  I  am  such  a  coward  as  to  lay  violent  hands  upon 
myself?     I  am  innocent,  and  I  shall  die  fearlessly." 

Having  finished  his  repast,  he  waited  patiently  for  the  return  of  the  an- 
swer from  the  Convention.  At  six  o'clock,  Garat,  accompanied  by  Santerre, 
entered  again.  The  Convention  refused  the  delay  of  execution  which  Louis 
XVI.  had  solicited,  but  granted  the  other  demands. 

In  a  few  moments  M.  Edgeworth,  the  ecclesiastic  who  had  been  sent  for, 
arrived.  He  entered  the  chamber,  and,  overwhelmed  with  emotion,  fell  at 
the  monarch's  feet  and  burst  into  tears.  The  king,  deeply  moved,  also  wept, 
and,  as  he  raised  M.  Edgeworth,  said, 

"  Pardon  me  this  momentary  weakness.  I  have  lived  so  long  among  my 
enemies  that  habit  has  rendered  me  indifferent  to  their  hatred,  and  my  heart 
has  been  closed  against  all  sentiments  of  tenderness ;  but  the  sight  of  a  faith- 
ful friend  restores  to  me  my  sensibility,  which  I  believed  dead,  and  moves 
me  to  tears  in  spite  of  myself." 

The  king  conversed  earnestly  with  his  spiritual  adviser  respecting  his  will, 
which  he  read,  and  inquired  earnestly  for  his  friends,  whose  sufferings  moved 
his  heart  deeply.  The  hour  of  seven  had  now  arrived,  when  the  king  was 
to  hold  his  last  interview  with  his  family.  But  even  this  could  not  be  in 
private.  He  was  to  be  watched  by  his  jailers,  who  were  to  hear  every  word 
and  witness  every  gesture.  The  door  opened,  and  the  queen,  pallid  and 
woe-stricken,  entered,  leading  her  son  by  the  hand.  She  threw  herself  into 
the  arms  of  her  husband,  and  silently  endeavored  to  draw  him  toward  her 
chamber. 

"No,  no,"  whispered  the  king,  clasping  her  to  his  heart;  "I  can  see  you 
only  here." 

Madame  Elizabeth,  with  the  king's  daughter,  followed.  A  scene  of  an- 
guish ensued  which  neither  pen  nor  pencil  can  portray.  The  king  sat  down, 
with  the  queen  upon  his  right  hand,  his  sister  upon  his  left,  their  arms  en- 
circling his  neck,  and  their  heads  resting  upon  his  breast.  The  dauphin  sat 
upon  his  father's  knee,  with  his  arm  around  his  neck.  The  beautiful  prin- 
cess, with  disheveled  hair,  threw  herself  between  her  father's  knees,  and  bur- 
ied her  face  in  his  lap.  More  than  half  an  hour  passed  during  which  not  an 
articulate  word  was  spoken ;  but  cries,  groans,  and  occasional  shrieks  of  an- 
guish, which  pierced  even  the  thick  walls  of  the  Temple  and  were  heard  in 
the  streets,  rose  from  the  group. 

For  two  hours  the  agonizing  interview  was  continued.  As  they  gradual- 
ly regained  some  little  composure,  in  low  tones  they  whispered  messages  of 
tenderness  and  love,  interrupted  by  sobs,  and  kisses,  and  blinding  floods  of 
tears.  It  was  now  after  nine  o'clock,  and  in  the  morning  the  king  was  to  be 
led  to  the  guillotine.  The  queen  implored  permission  for  them  to  remain 
with  him  through  the  night.  The  king,  through  tenderness  for  his  family, 
declined,  but  promised  to  see  them  again  at  seven  o'clock  the  next  morning. 
As  the  king  accompanied  them  to  the  stair-case  their  cries  were  redoubled, 


326 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


[Chap.  XXXI. 


LAST  INTEBVIEW  BETWEEN  UOUIB  X\L   AND  HIS  FAMILY. 


and  the  princess  fainted  in  utter  unconsciousness  at  her  father's  feet.  The 
queen,  Madame  Elizabeth,  and  Clery  carried  her  to  the  stairs,  and  the  king 
returned  to  the  room,  and,  burying  his  face  in  his  hands,  sank,  exhausted,  into 
a  chair.     After  a  long  silence  he  turned  to  M.  Edgeworth  and  said, 

"  Ah !  monsieur,  what  an  interview  I  have  had !  Why  do  I  love  so  fond- 
ly ?  Alas !  why  am  I  so  fondly  loved  ?  But  we  have  now  done  with  time. 
Let  us  occupy  ourselves  with  eternity." 

The  king  passed  some  time  in  religious  conversation  and  prayer,  and,  hav- 
ing arranged  with  M.  Edgeworth  to  partake  of  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's 
Supper  in  the  earliest  hours  of  the  morning,  at  midnight  threw  himself  upon 
his  bed,  and  almost  immediately  fell  into  a  calm  and  refreshing  sleep. 

The  faithful  Clery  and  M.  Edgeworth  watched  at  the  bedside  of  the  king. 
At  five  o'clock  they  woke  him.  "Has  it  struck  five?"  inquired  the  king. 
"Not  yet  by  the  clock  of  the  tower,"  Clery  replied;  "but  several  of  the 
clocks  of  the  city  have  struck."  "  I  have  slept  soundly,"  remarked  the  king. 
"  I  was  much  fatigued  yesterday." 

lie  immediately  arose.  An  altar  had  been  prepared  in  the  middle  of  the 
room  composed  of  a  chest  of  drawers,  and  the  king,  after  engaging  earnestly 
in  prayer,  received  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper.  Then  leading  Clery 
int(j  the  recess  of  a  window,  he  detached  from  his  watch  a  seal,  and  took 
from  his  finger  a  wedding-ring,  and  handing  them  to  Clery,  said, 

"  After  my  death  you  will  give  this  seal  to  my  son,  this  ring  to  the  queen. 
Tell  her  I  resign  it  with  j)ain  that  it  may  not  be  profiined  with  my  body. 
This  small  parcel  contains  locks  of  hair  of  all  my  family  :  that  you  will  give 
her.     Say  to  the  queen,  my  dear  children,  and  my  sister,  that  I  had  prom- 


1793.]  EXECUTION  OF  LOUIS  XVI.  327 

ised  to  see  them  this  morning,  but  that  I  desired  to  spare  them  the  agony  of 
such  a  bitter  separation  twice  over.  How  much  it  has  cost  me  to  depart 
without  receiving  their  last  embraces !" 

He  could  say  no  more,  for  sobs  choked  his  utterance.  Soon  recovering 
himself,  he  called  for  scissors,  and  cut  off  his  long  hair,  that  he  might  escape 
the  humiliation  of  having  that  done  by  the  executioner. 

A  few  beams  of  daylight  began  now  to  penetrate  the  gloomy  prison 
through  the  grated  windows,  and  the  beating  of  drums,  and  the  rumbhng 
of  the  wheels  of  heavy  artillery  were  heard  in  the  streets.  The  king  turned 
to  his  confessor,  and  said, 

"  How  happy  I  am  that  I  maintained  my  faith  on  the  throne !  Where 
should  I  be  this  day  but  for  this  hope  ?  Yes,  there  is  on  high  a  Judge,  in- 
corruptible, who  will  award  to  me  that  measure  of  justice  which  men  refuse 
to  me  here  below." 

Two  hours  passed  away,  while  the  king  listened  to  the  gathering  of  the 
troops  in  the  court-yard  and  around  the  Temj^le.  At  nine  o'clock  a  tumult- 
uous noise  was  heard  of  men  ascending  the  stair-case.  Santerre  entered,  with 
twelve  municipal  officers  and  ten  gens  d'armes.  The  king,  with  command- 
ing voice  and  gesture,  pointed  Santerre  to  the  door,  and  said, 

"  You  have  come  for  me.  I  will  be  with  you  in  an  instant.  Await  me 
there." 

Falling  upon  his  knees,  he  engaged  a  moment  in  prayer,  and  then,  turn- 
ing to  M.  Edgeworth,  said, 

''  All  is  consummated.  Give  me  your  blessing,  and  pray  to  God  to  sus- 
tain me  to  the  end." 

He  rose,  and  taking  from  the  table  a  paper  which  contained  his  last  will 
and  testament,  addressed  one  of  the  municipal  guard,  saying,  "I  beg  of  you 
to  transmit  this  paper  to  the  queen."  The  man,  whose  name  was  Jacques 
Eoux,  brutally  replied,  "  I  am  here  to  conduct  you  to  the  scaffold,  not  to  per- 
form your  commissions." 

"  True,"  said  the  king,  in  a  saddened  tone,  but  without  the  slightest  ap- 
pearance of  irritation.  Then  carefully  scanning  the  countenances  of  each 
member  of  the  guard,  he  selected  one  whose  features  expressed  humanity, 
and  solicited  him  to  take  charge  of  the  paper.  The  man,  whose  name  was 
Gobeau,  took  the  paper. 

The  king,  declining  the  cloak  which  Clery  offered  him,  said,  "Give  me 
only  my  hat."  Then,  taking  the  hand  of  Clery,  he  pressed  it  affectionately 
in  a  final  adieu,  and,  turning  to  Santerre,  said,  "Let  us  go."  Descending 
the  stairs  with  a  firm  tread,  followed  by  the  armed  escort,  he  met  a  turnkey 
whom  he  had  the  evening  before  reproached  for  some  impertinence.  The 
king  approached  him  and  said,  in  tones  of  kindness, 

"Mathey,  I  was  somewhat  warm  with  you  yesterday;  excuse  me  for  the 
sake  of  this  hour." 

As  he  crossed  the  court-yard,  he  twice  turned  to  look  up  at  the  windows 
of  the  queen's  apartment  in  the  tower,  where  those  so  dear  to  him  were  suf- 
fering the  utmost  anguish  which  human  hearts  can  endure.  Two  gens 
d'armes  sat  upon  the  front  seat  of  the  carriage.  The  king  and  M.  Edge- 
worth  took  the  back  seat.     The  morning  was  damp  and  chill,  and  gloomy 


328 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


[Chap.  XXXI. 

clouds  darkened  the  sky.  Sixty  drums  were  beating  at  the  heads  of  the 
horses,  and  an  army  of  troops,  with  all  the  most  formidable  enginery  of 
war,  preceded,  surrounded,  and  followed  the  carriage.  The  noise  of  the 
drums  prevented  any  conversation,  and  the  king  sat  in  silence  in  the  car- 
riage, evidently  engaged  in  prayer.  The  procession  moved  so  slowly  along 
the  Boulevards  that  it  was  two  hours  before  they  reached  the  Place  de  la 
Revolution.  An  immense  crowd  filled  the  place,  above  whom  towered  the 
lofty  platform  and  blood-red  posts  of  the  guillotine. 
As  the  carriage  stopped  the  king  whispered  to  M.  Edgeworth,  "  We  have 


rJuxTTioN  OK  Loria  rsi. 


\- 


1793.]  EXECUTION  OF  LOUIS  XVI.  329 

arrived,  if  I  mistake  not."  The  drums  ceased  beating,  and  tlie  whole  mul- 
titude gazed  in  the  most  solemn  silence.  The  two  gens  d'armes  alighted. 
The  king  placed  his  hand  upon  the  knee  of  the  heroic  ecclesiastic,  M.  Edge- 
worth,  and  said  to  the  gens  d'armes, 

'  Gentlemen,  I  recommend  to  your  care  this  gentleman.  Let  him  not  be 
insulted  after  my  death.     I  entreat  you  to  watch  over  him." 

"Yes,  yes,"  said  one,  contemptuously;  "make  your  mind  easy,  we  will 
take  care  of  him.     Let  us  alone." 

Louis  alighted.  Two  of  the  executioners  came  to  the  foot  of  the  scafifold 
to  take  off  his  coat.  The  king  waved  them  away,  and  himself  took  off  his 
coat  and  cravat,  and  turned  down  the  collar  of  his  shirt,  that  his  throat 
might  be  presented  bare  to  the  knife.  They  then  came  with  cords  to  bind 
his  hands  behind  his  back. 

"What  do  you  wish  to  do?"  said  the  king,  indignantly. 

"Bind  you,"  they  replied,  as  they  seized  his  hands,  and  endeavored  to 
fasten  them  with  the  cords. 

"Bind  me!"  replied  the  king,  in  tones  of  deepest  feeling.  "No,  no;  I 
will  never  consent.     Do  your  business,  but  you  shall  not  bind  me." 

The  executioners  seized  him  rudely,  and  called  for  help.  "  Sire,"  said 
his  Christian  adviser,  "suffer  this  outrage,  as  a  last  resemblance  to  that 
God  who  is  about  to  be  your  reward." 

"Assuredly,"  replied  the  king,  "there  needed  nothing  less  than  the  ex- 
ample of  God  to  make  me  submit  to  such  an  indignity."  Then,  holding  out 
his  hands  to  the  executioners,  he  said,  "Do  as  you  will !  I  w^ill  drink  the 
cup  to  the  dregs." 

With  a  firm  tread  he  ascended  the  steep  steps  of  the  scaffold,  looked  for  a 
moment  upon  the  keen  and  polished  edge  of  the  axe,  and  then,  turning  to 
the  vast  throng,  said,  in  a  voice  clear  and  untremulous, 

"  People,  I  die  innocent  of  all  the  crimes  imputed  to  me !  I  pardon  the 
authors  of  my  death,  and  pray  to  God  that  the  blood  you  are  about  to  shed 
may  not  fall  again  on  France." 

He  would  have  continued,  but  the  drums  were  ordered  to  beat,  and  his 
voice  was  immediately  drowned.  The  executioners  seized  him,  bound  him 
to  the  plank,  the  slide  fell,  and  the  head  of  Louis  XVI.  dropped  into  the 
basket. 

No  one  has  had  a  better  opportunity  of  ascertaining  the  true  character  of 
the  king  than  President  Jefferson.  Speaking  of  some  of  the  king's  measures 
he  said,  "  These  concessions  came  from  the  very  heart  of  the  king.  He 
had  not  a  wish  but  for  the  good  of  the  nation;  and  for  that  object  no  per- 
sonal sacrifice  would  ever  have  cost  him  a  moment's  regret ;  but  his  mind 
was  weakness  itself,  his  constitution  timid,  his  judgment  null,  and  without 
suf&cient  firmness  even  to  stand  by  the  faith  of  his  word.  His  queen,  too, 
haughty  and  bearing  no  contradiction,  had  an  absolute  ascendency  over 
him;  and  round  her  were  rallied  the  king's  brother,  D'Artois,  the  court 
generally,  and  the  aristocratic  part  of  his  ministers,  particularly  Breteuil, 
Bjoglio,  Vauguyon,  Foulon,  Luzerne — men  whose  principles  of  government 
were  those  of  the  age  of  Louis  XIY,  Against  this  host,  the  good  counsels 
of  Necker,  Montmorin,  St.  Priest,  although  in  unison  with  the  wishes  of 


330 


THE  FEENCH  REVOLUTION. 


[Chap.  XXXI. 


the  king  himself,  were  of  Uttle  avaih  The  resolutions  of  the  morning, 
formed  under  their  advice,  would  be  reversed  in  the  evening  by  the  influ- 
ence of  the  queen  and  the  court."' 

The  Eoyalists  were  exceedingly  exasperated  by  the  condemnation  of  the 
king.  A  noble,  Lepelletier  St.  Fargeau,  who  had  espoused  the  popular 
cause,  voted  for  the  king's  death.  The  Eoyalists  were  pecuharly  excited 
against  him,  in  consequence  of  his  rank  and  fortune.  On  the  evening  of 
the  20th  of  January,  as  Louis  was  being  informed  of  his  sentence,  a  Ufe- 
guardsman  of  the  king  tracked  Lepelletier  into  a  restaurateur's  in  the  Palais 
Royal,  and,  just  as  he  was  sitting  down  to  the  table,  stepped  u^^  to  him  and 
said, 

"Art  thou  Lepelletier,  the  villain  who  voted  for  the  death  of  the  king?" 

"Yes,"  replied  Lepelletier,  "but  I  am  not  a  villain.  I  voted  according 
to  my  conscience." 

"  There,  then,"  rejoined  the  life-guardsman,  "  take  that  for  thy  reward," 
and  he  plunged  his  sword  to  the  hilt  in  his  side.  Lepelletier  fell  dead,  and 
his  assassin  escaped  before  they  had  time  to  arrest  him. 

This  event  created  intense  excitement,  and  increased  the  conviction  that 
the  Royalists  had  conspired  to  rescue  the  king,  by  force  of  arms,  at  the  foot 
of  the  scaffold. 


\^^   -^-"'^^f^lMlMf' 


▲SSAfleUCATIOM  or  LinaXBTCEB  DB  ST.  rAROEAU. 


1793.]  THE  REIGN  OF  TERROR.  33I 


CHAPTER  XXXII. 

THE    REIGN    OF    TERROR. 

Charges  against  the  Girondists. — Danton. — The  French  Embassador  ordered  to  leave  England. 
— War  declared  against  England. — Navy  of  England. — Internal  War. — Plot  to  assassinate 
the  Girondists. — Bold  Words  ofVergniaud. — Insurrection  in  La  Vendee. — Conflict  betsveen 
Dumouriez  and  the  Assembly. — Flight  of  Dumouriez. — The  Mob  aroused  and  the  Girondists 
arrested. — Charlotte  Corday. — France  rises  en  masse  to  repel  the  Allies. — The  treasonable 
Surrender  of  Toulon. 

The  execution  of  the  king  roused  all  Europe  against  republican  France. 
The  Jacobins  had  gained  a  decisive  victory  over  the  Girondists,  and  suc- 
ceeded in  turning  popular  hatred  against  them  bj  accusing  them  of  being 
enemies  of  the  people,  because  they  opposed  the  excesses  of  the  mob ;  of 
being  the  friends  of  royalty,  because  they  had  wished  to  save  the  life  of  the 
king ;  and  of  being  hostile  to  the  republic,  because  they  advocated  meas- 
sures  of  moderation.*  . 

Danton  was  now  the  acknowledged  leader  of  the  Jacobins.  He  had  ob-  / 
tained  the  entire  control  of  the  mob  of  Paris,  and  could  guide  their  terrible 
and  resistless  energies  in  any  direction.  With  this  potent  weapon  in  his 
hand  he  was  omnipotent,  and  his  political  adversaries  were  at  his  mercy. 
The  Eeign  of  Terror  had  now  commenced.  The  Girondists  made  a  heroic  \ 
attempt  to  bring  to  justice  the  assassins  of  September,  but  the  Jacobins 
promptly  stopped  the  proceedings. 

The  aristocracy  of  birth  was  now  effectually  crushed,  and  the  Jacobins 
commenced  a  warfare  against  the  aristocracy  of  wealth  and  character.  An 
elegant  mansion,  garments  of  fine  cloth,  and  even  polished  manners,  ex- 
posed one  to  the  charge  of  being  an  aristocrat,  and  turned  against  him  the 
insults  of  the  rabble.  Marat  was  particularlj^  fierce,  in  his  journal,  against 
the  aristocracy  of  the  burghers,  merchants,  and  statesmen. 

Upon  the  arrival  of  the  courier  in  London  conveying  intelligence  of  the 
execution  of  the  king,  M.  Chauvelin,  the  French  embassador,  was  ordered 
to  leave  England  within  twenty -four  hours. 

"After  events,"  said  Pitt,  "on  which  the  imagination  can  only  dwell 
with  horror,  and  since  an  infernal  faction  has  seized  on  the  supreme  power 
in  France,  we  could'  no  longer  tolerate  the  presence  of  M.  Chauvelin,  who 
has  left  no  means  untried  to  induce  the  people  to  rise  against  the  govern- 
ment and  the  laws  of  this  country." 

The  National  Convention  at  once  declared  war  against  England.f  Pitt, 
with  almost  superhuman  energy,  mustered  the  forces  of  England  and  Eu- 
rope for  the  strife.     In  less  than  six  months  England  had  entered  into  a 

*  Mignet,  p.  192. 

t  "The  Convention,  finding  England  already  leagued  with  the  coalition,  and  consequently  aU 
its  promises  of  neutrality  vain  and  illusive,  on  the  1st  of  February,  1793,  declared  war  against  the 
King  of  Great  Britain  and  the  Stadtholder  of  Holland,  who  had  been  entirely  guided  by  the  cabi- 
net of  St.  James's  since  1788." — Mignet,  vol.  i.,  p.  195. 


332  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [CilAP.  XXXII. 

treaty  of  alliance  with  Eussia,  Prussia,  Austria,  Naples,  Spain,  and  Portu- 
gal, for  the  prosecution  of  the  war ;  and  had  also  entered  into  treaties  by 
which  she  promised  large  subsidies  to  Hesse  Cassel,  Sardinia,  and  Baden. 
England  thus  became  the  soul  of  this  coalition,  which  combined  the  whole 
of  Europe,  with  the  exception  of  Venice,  Switzerland,  Sweden,  Denmark, 
and  Turkey,  against  France.  These  combined  armies  were  to  assail  the 
Republic  by  land,  while  the  invincible  fleet  of  England  was  to  hurl  a  storm 
of  shot  and  shells  into  all  her  maritime  towns. 

France,  at  this  time,  had  but  one  hundred  and  fifty-nine  vessels  of  war 
all  told.  England  had  four  hundred  and  fifteen,  and  her  ally,  Holland,  one 
hundred.  Most  of  these  were  large  ships,  heavily  armed ;  and,  consequent- 
ly, England  had  but  little  fear  that  any  French  armies  could  reach  her  isles.* 
Parliament  voted  an  extraordinary  supply  of  £3,200,000  ($16,000,000). 
One  hundred  and  thirty-one  thousand  Austrians,  one  hundred  and  twelve 
thousand  Prussians,  and  fifty  thousand  Spaniards  were  speedily  on  the 
march  to  assail  France  at  every  point  on  the  frontier.f 

The  Royalists  in  La  Vendee  rose  in  arms  against  the  Republic,  and  un- 
furled the  white  banner  of  the  Bourbons.  France  was  now  threatened  more 
fearfully  than  ever  before  with  external  and  internal  war.  The  Conven- 
tion, controlled  by  the  Jacobins  and  appalled  by  the  danger,  decreed  a  levy 
of  three  hundred  thousand  men  to  repel  the  assailants,  and  also  organized 
/  an  extraordinary  revolutionary  tribunal,  invested  with  unlimited  powers  to 
arrest,  judge,  and  punish  any  whom  they  should  deem  dangerous  to  the 
Republic.  Violence  filled  the  land,  terror  reigned  every  where,  and  even 
Robespierre  was  heard  to  exclaim,  "  I  am  sick  of  the  Revolution." 

Dumouriez  had  driven  the  Austrians  out  of  Belgium  and  the  Netherlands, 
and  wa.s  at  the  head  of  an  army  of  about  seventy-five  thousand  men.  Dis- 
gusted with  the  anarchy  which  reigned  in  France,  he  formed  the  bold  de- 
sign of  marching  upon  Paris  with  his  army,  dispersing  the  Convention, 
abolishing  the  Republic,  reinstituting  a  constitutional  monarchy  by  estab- 
lishing the  Constitution  of  1791,  and  by  placing  a  king,  probably  the  son 
of  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  subsequently  Louis  Phihppe,  upon  the  throne. 
The  Jacobins,  goaded  by  these  accumulating  dangers — all  Europe  assailing 
France  from  without,  and  Royalists  plotting  within — were  prepared  for  any 
measures  of  desperation.  The  Girondists,  with  unavailing  heroism,  opposed 
the  frantic  measures  of  popular  violence,  and  the  Jacobins  resolved  to  get 
rid  of  them  all  by  a  decisive  blow.  The  assassins  of  September  were  ready 
to  ply  the  dagger,  under  the  plea  that  murder  was  patriotism.  A  plan  was 
f(jrmed  to  strike  them  all  down,  in  the  Convention,  on  the  night  of  the  10th 
of  March.  But  the  Girondists,  informed  of  the  plot,  absented  themselves 
from  the  meeting  and  the  enterprise  failed.  The  bold  spirit  of  the  Giron- 
dists was  avowed  in  the  words  of  Vcrgniaud : 

"  Wo  have  witnessed,"  said  he,  "  the  development  of  that  strange  system 
of  liberty  in  which  we  are  told  'You  arc  free,  but  think  with  us,  or  we  will 

*  Lnmnrtino,  ITistory  of  tho  Girondists,  vol.  ii.,  p.  395. 

t  "  It  was  in  S])nin,  more  jMirtinilarly,  that  Pitt  sot  intriptics  nt  work  to  urpe  her  to  the  pront- 
cst  hliindtr  slu-  oviy  committed— that  of  joininp;  England  against  France,  her  only  miiritimc  ally." 
—  ITiiers,  vol.  ii.,  ji.  H'J. 


I 


1793.]  THE  REIGN  OF  TERROR.  333 

denounce  you  to  the  vengeance  of  the  people ;  you  are  free,  but  bow  down 
your  head  to  the  idol  we  worship,  or  we  will  denounce  you  to  the  vengeance 
of  the  people;  you  are  free,  but  join  us  in  persecuting  the  men  whose  prob- 
ity and  intelligence  we  dread,  or  we  will  denounce  you  to  the  vengeance  of 
the  people.'  Citizens !  we  have  reason  to  fear  that  the  Kevolution,  like  Sat- 
urn, will  devour  successively  all  its  children,  and  only  engender  despotism 
and  the  calamities  which  accompany  it." 

The  Province  of  La  Vendee  contained  a  population  of  about  three  hund- 
red thousand.  It  was  a  rural  district  where  there  was  no  middle  class.  The 
priests  and  the  nobles  had  the  unlettered  peasantry  entirely  under  their  in- 
fluence. Three  armies  were  raised  here  against  the  Republic,  of  about 
twelve  thousand  each.  Royalists  from  various  parts  of  the  empire  flocked 
to  this  region,  and  emigrants  were  landed  upon  the  coast  to  join  the  insur- 
gents. For  three  years  a  most  cruel  and  bloody  war  was  here  waged  b'fetween 
the  Royalists  and  the  Republicans. 

The  intelligence  of  this  formidable  insurrection  increased  the  panic  of  the 
Convention.  A  law  was  passed  disarming  all  who  had  belonged  to  the 
privileged^class,  and  declaring  those  to  be  outlaws  who  should  be  found  in 
any  hostfle  gathering  against  the  Republic.  The  emigrants  were  forbidden 
to  land  in  France  under  the  penalty  of  death.  Every  house  in  the  kingdom 
was  to  inscribe  upon  its  door  the  names  of  all  its  inmates,  and  was  to  be 
open  at  all  times  to  the  visits  of  the  Vigilance  Committee. 

Dumouriez  sullied  his  character  by  surrendering  to  the  Austrians  several 
fortresses,  and  agreeing  with  them  that  he  would  march  upon  Paris  and  re- 
store a  monarchical  government  to  France.  The  Austrians  trusted  that  he 
would  place  upon  the  throne  the  young  son  of  Louis  XVL,  though  it  was 
doubtless  his  intention  to  place  there  the  young  Duke  of  Chartres  (Louis 
Philippe),  who  would  be  the  representative  of  popular  ideas. 

The  Jacobin  Club  sent  a  deputation  of  three  of  its  members  to  the  camp, 
to  sound  the  views  of  Dumouriez.  The  general  received  them  with  cour- 
tesy, but  said,  with  military  frankness, 

"  The  Convention  is  an  assembly  of  tyrants.  "While  I  have  three  inches 
of  steel  by  my  side  that  monster  shall  not  exist.  As  for  the  Republic,  it  is  an 
idle  word.  I  had  faith  in  it  for  three  days.  There  is  only  one  way  to  save 
the  country ;  that  is,  to  re-establish  the  Constitution  of  1791  and  a  king." 

"  Can  you  think  of  it!"  one  of  the  deputation  exclaimed ;  "  the  French  view 
royalty  with  horror.     The  very  name  of  Louis  is  an  abomination." 

"  What  does  it  signify,"  replied  Dumouriez,  "  whether  the  king  be  called 
Louis,  or  Jacques,  or  Philippe?" 

"  And  what  are  your  means  to  efiect  this  revolution  ?"  they  inquired. 

"  My  army,"  Dumouriez  proudly  replied.  "  From  my  camp  or  from  the 
stronghold  of  some  fortress  they  will  express  their  resolve  for  a  king," 

"  But  your  plan  wiU  peril  the  lives  of  the  rest  of  the  royal  family  in  the 
Temple." 

"  If  every  member  of  that  family  in  France  or  at  Coblentz  should  perish," 
Dumouriez  replied,  "  I  can  still  find  a  chief.  And  if  any  farther  barbarities 
are  practiced  upon  the  Bourbons  in  the  Temple  I  will  surround  Paris  with 
my  army  and  starve  the  Parisians  into  subjection." 


334  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [CUAP.  XXX TT. 

The  deputation  returned  to  Paris  with  their  report,  and  four  commission- 
ers were  immediately  dispatched,  accompanied  by  the  ^Minister  of  AVar,  to 
summon  Dumouriez  to  the  bar  of  the  Convention.  Dumouriez  promptly 
arrested  the  commissioners  and  sent  them  off  to  the  Austrians,  to  be  retained 
by  them  as  hostages. 


l>rMOCKIEZ   AKEESTrNG  TIIE  ENTOYE 


The  Convention  immediately  offered  a  reward  for  the  head  of  Dumouriez, 
raised  an  army  of  forty  thousand  men  to  defend  Paris,  and  arrested  all  the 
relatives  of  the  officers  under  Dumouriez  as  hostages. 

Dumouriez  now  found  that  he  had  not  a  moment  to  lose.  Perils  were  ac- 
cumulating thick  around  him.  There  were  many  indications  that  it  might 
be  difficult  to  carry  the  army  over  to  his  views.  On  the  4th  of  April,  as  he 
was  repairing  to  a  place  of  rendezvous  with  the  Austrian  leaders,  the  Prince 
of  Coburg  and  General  Mack,  a  battalion  of  soldiers,  suspecting  treachery, 
endeavored  to  stop  him.  He  put  spurs  to  his  horse  and  distanced  pursuit, 
while  a  storm  of  bullets  whistled  around  his  head.  He  succeeded,  after  in- 
numerable perils,  in  the  circuitous  ride  of  a  whole  day,  in  reaching  the  head- 
quarters of  the  Austrians.  They  received  him  with  great  distinction,  and 
offered  him  the  command  of  a  division  of  their  army.  After  two  days'  re- 
flection, he  said  that  it  was  with  the  soldiers  of  France  he  had  hoped  to  re- 
store a  stable  government  to  his  country,  accepting  the  Austrians  only  as 
auxiliaries ;  but  that  as  a  Frenchman  he  could  not  march  against  France  at 
the  head  of  foreigners.  He  retired  to  Switzerland.  The  Duke  of  Chartres 
(Louis  Philippe),  in  friendlcssness  and  poverty,  followed  him,  and  for  some 
time  was  obliged  to  obtain  a  sujipoft  by  tcachijig  school. 

The  Jacobins  now  accused  their  formidable  rivals,  the  Girondists,  of  being 
implicated  in  the  conspiracy  of  Dumouriez.  Robespierre,  in  a  speech  of  the 
most  concentrated  and  ])Otent  malignity,  urged  that  France  had  relieved  her- 
self of  the  aristocracy  of  birth,  but  that  there  was  another  aristocracy,  that 
of  wealth,  equally  to  be  dreaded,  which  must  be  crushed,  and  that  the  Gi- 
rondists were  the  Icade-rs  of  this  aristocracy.    This  was  most  effectually  pan- 


1793.]  THE  EEIGN  OF  TERROR.  335 

dering  to  the  passions  of  the  mob,  and  directing  their  fary  against  the  Gi- 
rondists. The  Girondists  were  now  in  a  state  of  terrible  alarm.  They  knew 
the  malignity  of  their  foes,  and  could  see  but  little  hope  for  escape.  They 
had  overturned  the  throne  of  despotism,  hoping  to  establish  constitutional 
hberty :  they  had  only  introduced  Jacobin  phrensy  and  anarchy.  Immense 
crowds  of  armed  men  paraded  the  streets  of  Paris,  surrounded  the  Conven- 
tion, and  demanded  vengeance  against  the  leaders  of  the  Gironde.* 

The  moderate  Kepublicans,  enemies  of  these  acts  of  violence,  striving  to 
stem  the  torrent,  endeavored  to  carry  an  act  of  accusation  against  Marat. 
He  was  charged  with  having  encouraged  assassination  and  carnage,  of  dis- 
solving the  National  Convention,  and  of  having  established  a  power  destruc- 
tive of  liberty. 

Marat  replied  to  the  accusation  by  summoning  the  mob  to  his  aid.  They 
assembled  in  vast,  tumultuous  throngs,  and  the  tribunal,  overawed,  after  the 
trial  of  a  few  moments,  unanimously  acquitted  him.  This  was  the  24th  of 
April.  The  mob  accompanied  him  back  to  his  seat  in  the  Convention.  He 
was  borne  in  triumph  into  the  hall  in  the  arms  of  his  confederates,  his  brow 
encircled  by  a  wreath  of  victory. 

"  Citizen  President,"  shouted  one  of  the  burly  men  who  bore  Marat,  "  we 
bring  you  the  worthy  Marat.  Marat  has  always  been  the  friend  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  the  people  will  always  be  the  friends  of  Marat.  If  Marat's  head 
must  fall,  our  heads  must  fall  first." 

As  he  uttered  these  words  he  brandished  a  battle-axe  defiantly,  and  the 
mob  in  the  aisles  and  crowded  galleries  vehemently  applauded.  He  then 
demanded  permission  for  the  escort  to  file  through  the  hall.  The  president, 
appalled  by  the  hideous  spectacle,  had  not  time  to  give  his  consent  before 
the  whole  throng,  men,  women,  and  boys,  in  rags  and  filth,  rushed  pell-mell 
into  the  hall,  took  the  seats  of  the  vacant  members,  and  filled  the  room  with 
indescribable  tumult  and  uproar,  shouting  hosannas  to  Marat.  The  success- 
ful demagogue  could  not  but  boast  of  his  triumph.  Ascending  the  tribune, 
he  said, 

"  Citizens !  indignant  at  seeing  a  villainous  faction  betraying  the  Eepublic, 
I  endeavored  to  unmask  it  and  io  jmt  the  rope  about  its  neck.  It  resisted  me 
by  lanching  against  me  a  decree  of  accusation.    I  have  come  off  victorious. 

*  In  reference  to  the  terrific  conflict  between  the  privileged  classes  and  the  enslaved  people, 
Prof.  Smyth  writes,  "My  conclusion  is  that  neither  the  high  party  nor  the  low  have  the  slight- 
est right  to  felicitate  themselves  on  their  conduct  during  this  memorable  revolution.  No  histo- 
rian, no  commentator  on  these  times  can  proceed  a  moment,  but  on  the  supposition  that,  while 
he  is  censuring  the  faults  of  the  one,  he  is  perfectly  aware  of  the  antagonistic  faults  of  the  other ; 
that  each  party  is  to  take  its  turn ;  and  that  the  whole  is  a  dreadful  lesson  of  instniction  both  to 
the  one  and  the  other.  I  have  dwelt  with  more  earnestness  on  the  faults  of  the  popular  leaders,  he- 
cause  their  faults  are  more  natural  and  more  imjjortant ;  because  the  friends  of  freedom  {hot  and  opin- 
ionated though  they  he)  are  still  more  ivithin  the  reach  of  instruction  than  are  men  of  arbitrary  temper- 
ament, than  courts  and  privileged  orders,  rcho  are  systematically  othenvise." — Prof.  Smyth,  Fr.  Rev., 
vol.  iii.,  p.  245. 

The  story  of  the  French  Revolution  has  too  often  been  told  in  this  spirit,  veiling  the  atrocities 
of  the  oppressors  and  magnifying  the  inhumanity  of  the  oppressed.  While  truth  demands  that 
all  the  violence  of  an  enslaved  people,  in  despair  bursting  their  bonds,  should  be  faithfully  delin- 
eated, truth  no  less  imperiously  demands  that  the  mercilessness  of  proud  oppressors,  crushing 
millions  for  ages,  and  goading  a  whole  nation  to  the  madness  of  despair,  should  be  also  impar- 
tially described. 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXXTT. 


MARAT'S  TEIUMPU. 


The  faction  is  humbled,  but  not  crushed.     Waste  not  your  time  in  decree- 
ing triumphs.     Defend  yourselves  with  enthusiasm." 

Robespierre  now  demanded  an  act  of  accusation  against  the  Girondists. 
Resistance  was  hopeless.  The  inundation  of  poi)ular  fury  was  at  its  flood, 
sweeping  every  thing  before  it.  The  most  frightful  scenes  of  tumult  took 
place  in  the  Convention,  members  endeavoring  by  violence  to  pull  each  oth- 
er from  the  tribune.* 

♦  In  the  Convention,  cnch  one  who  addressed  the  body  ascended  to  a  desk  on  the  jdatforra, 
called  tliu  trilmne. 


1793.]  THE  REIGN  OF  TERROR.  337 

The  whole  Convention  was  now  in  a  state  of  dismay,  eighty  thousand  in- 
furiate men  surrounding  it  with  artillery  and  musketry,  declaring  that  the 
Convention  should  not  leave  its  hall  until  the  Girondists  were  arrested. 
The  Convention,  in  a  body,  attempted  to  leave  and  force  its  way  through 
the  crowd,  but  it  was  ignommiously  driven  back.  Under  these  circum- 
stances it  was  voted  that  the  leaders  of  the  Girondists,  twenty-two  in  num- 
ber, should  be  put  under  arrest.     This  was  the  2d  of  June,  1793.* 

The  Jacobins,  having  thus  got  rid  of  their  enemies,  and  having  the  entire 
control,  immediately  decided  to  adopt  a  new  Constitution,  still  more  demo- 
cratic in  its  character ;  and  a  committee  was  appointed  to  present  one  within 
a  week.  But  the  same  division  which  existed  in  the  Convention  between 
the  Jacobins  and  the  Girondists  existed  all  over  France.  In  many  of  the 
departments  fierce  battles  rose  between  the  two  parties. 

In  the  mean  time  the  Allies  were  pressing  France  in  all  directions.  The 
Austrians  and  Prussians  were  advancing  upon  the  north ;  the  Piedmontese 
threading  the  passes  of  the  maritime  Alps ;  the  Spaniards  were  prepared  to 
rush  from  the  defiles  of  the  Pyrenees,  and  the  fleet  of  England  threatened 
every  where  the  coast  of  France  on  the  Mediterranean  and  the  Channel.f 

With  amazing  energy  the  Convention  aroused  itself  to  meet  these  perils. 
A  new  Constitution,  exceedingly  democratic,  was  framed  and  adopted.  Ev- 
ery Frenchman  twenty-one  years  of  age  was  a  voter.  Fifty  thousand  souls 
were  entitled  to  a  deputy.  There  was  but  a  single  Assembly.  Its  decrees 
were  immediately  carried  into  execution.:]; 

Danton,  Eobespierre,  and  Marat  were  now  the  idols  of  the  mob  of  Paris 
and  the  real  sovereigns  of  France.  All  who  ventured  opposition  to  them 
were  proscribed  and  imprisoned.  Members  of  the  Republican  or  Girondist 
party  every  where,  all  over  France,  were  arrested,  or,  where  they  were  suffi- 
ciently numerous  to  resist,  civil  war  raged. 

At  Caen  there  was  a  very  beautiful  girl,  Charlotte  Corday,  twenty-five 
years  of  age,  highly  educated  and  accomplished.  She  was  of  spotless  purity 
of  character,  and,  with  the  enthusiasm  of  Madame  Roland,  she  had  espoused 
the  cause  of  popular  constitutional  liberty.  The  principles  of  the  Girondist 
party  she  had  embraced,  and  the  noble  leaders  of  that  party  she  regarded 
almost  with  adoration. 

When  she  heard  of  the  overthrow  of  the  Girondists  and  their  imprison- 
ment, she  resolved  to  avenge  them,  and  hoped  that,  by  striking  down  the 
leader  of  the  Jacobins,  she  might  rouse  the  Girondists  scattered  over  France 
to  rally  and  rescue  liberty  and  their  country.  It  was  a  three  days'  ride  in 
the  diligence  from  Caen  to  Paris.  Arriving  at  Paris  on  Thursday  the  11th 
of  July,  she  carefully  inspected  the  state  of  affairs,  that  she  might  select  her 
victim,  but  confided  her  design  to  no  one. 

*  Thiers,  vol.  ii.,  p.  194. 

t  The  Allies  acted  without  union,  and,  under  disguise  of  a  holy  war,  concealed  the  most  self- 
ish views.  The  Austrians  wanted  Valenciennes  :  the  King  of  Prussia,  Mayence  ;  the  English, 
Dunkirk  ;  the  Piedmontese  aspired  to  recover  Chambery  and  Nice  ;  the  Spaniards,  the  least  in- 
terested of  all,  had  nevertheless  some  thoughts  of  Rouissillon.  —  Thiers,  vol.  ii.,  p.  217. 

J  "  As  the  Constitution  thus  made  over  the  government  to  the  multitude,  as  it  placed  the  power 
in  a  disorganized  body,  it  would  have  been  at  all  times  impracticable,  but  at  a  period  of  general 
warfare  it  was  peculiarlv  so.     Accordingly,  it  was  no  sooner  made  than  suspended." — Mignet. 

Y 


338  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXXII. 

Marat  appeared  to  her  the  most  active,  formidable,  and  insatiable  in  his 
proscription.     She  wrote  him  a  note  as  follows : 

"Citizen:  I  have  just  arrived  from  Caen.  Your  love  for  your  country 
inclines  me  to  suppose  you  will  listen  with  pleasure  to  the  secret  events  of 
that  part  of  the  Kepublic.  I  will  present  myself  at  your  house.  Have  the 
goodness  to  give  orders  for  my  admission,  and  grant  me  a  moment's  private 
conversation.  I  can  point  out  the  means  by  which  you  can  render  an  im- 
portant service  to  France." 

She  dispatched  this  note  from  her  hotel,  the  Inn  de  la  Providence  in  the 
Rue  des  Vieux  Augustins,  went  to  the  Palais  Royal  and  purchased  a  large 
sheath  knife,  and,  taking  a  hackney-coach,  drove  to  the  residence  of  Marat, 
No.  44  Rue  de  I'Ecole  de  Medecine.  It  was  Saturday  night.  Marat  was 
taking  a  bath  and  reading  by  a  light  which  stood  upon  a  three-footed  stool. 
He  heard  the  rap  of  Charlotte,  and  called  aloud  to  the  woman  who,  as  sers-- 
ant  and  mistress,  attended  him,  and  requested  that  she  might  be  admitted. 

Marat  was  a  man  of  the  most  restless  activity.  Eagerly  he  inquired  re- 
specting the  proscribed  at  Caen  and  of  others  who  were  opposed  to  Jacobin 
rule.  Charlotte,  while  replying  coolly,  measured  with  her  eye  the  spot  she 
should  strike  with  the  knife.  As  she  mentioned  some  names,  he  eagerly 
seized  a  pencil  and  began  to  write  them  down,  saying, 

"  They  shall  all  go  to  the  guillotine." 

"To  the  guillotine?"  exclaimed  Charlotte,  and,  instantly  drawing  the 
knife  from  her  bosom,  plunged  it  to  the  handle  directly  in  his  heart. 

The  miserable  man  uttered  one  frantic  shriek  of  "  Help  I"  and  fell  back 
dead  into  the  water.  The  paramour  of  Marat  and  a  serving-man  rushed  in, 
knocked  Charlotte  down  with  a  chair,  and  trampled  upon  her.  A  crowd 
soon  assembled.  Without  the  slightest  perturbation  she  avowed  the  deed. 
Her  youth  and  beauty  alone  saved  her  from  being  torn  in  pieces.  Soldiers 
soon  arrived  and  conveyed  her  to  prison. 

"  The  way  to  avenge  Marat,"  exclaimed  Robespierre  from  the  tribune  in 
tones  which  caused  France  to  tremble,  "is  to  strike  down  his  enemies  with- 
out mercy." 

The  remains  of  the  wretched  man,  whom  all  the  world  now  execrates, 
were  buried  with  the  highest  possible  honors.  His  funeral  at  midnight,  as 
all  Paris  seemed  to  follow  him  to  his  grave  in  a  torch-light  procession,  was 
one  of  the  most  imposing  scenes  of  the  Revolution. 

On  Wednesday  morning  Charlotte  was  led  to  tlie  Revolutionary  Tribunal 
in  the  Palace  of  Justice.  She  appeared  there  dignified,  calm,  and  beautiful. 
The  indictment  was  read,  and  they  were  beginning  to  introduce  their  wit- 
nesses, when  Charlotte  said, 

"  These  delays  arc  needless.     It  is  I  that  killed  iNIarat." 

There  was  a  moment's  jiause,  and  many  deplored  the  doom  of  one  so  youth- 
ful and  lovely.    At  last  the  president  inquired,  "  By  whose  instigation  ?" 

"By  that  of  no  one,"  was  the  laconic  reply. 

"  What  tempted  you  ?"  inquired  the  president. 

"Ilis  crimes,"  Charlotte  answered;  and  then,  continuing  in  tones  of  firm- 
ness and  intensity  which  silenced  and  overawed  all  present,  she  said, 

"  I  killed  one  man,  to  save  a  hundred  thousand ;  a  villain,  to  save  the 


1793.] 


THE  REIGN  OF  TERROR. 


339 


ClIAELOTTE  COEDAY   ABEESTED. 


innocent ;  a  savage  wild  beast,  to  give  repose  to  my  country.     I  was  a  Ee- 
publican  before  the  Eevolution,     I  never  wanted  energy."* 

She  hstened  to  her  doom  of  immediate  death  with  a  smile,  and  was  con- 
ducted back  to  the  prison,  to  be  led  from  thence  to  the  guillotine.  A  little 
after  seven  o'clock  on  this  same  evening  a  cart  issued  from  the  Concierge- 
rie,  bearing  Charlotte,  in  the  red  robe  of  a  murderess,  to  the  guillotine.  A 
vast  throng  crowded  the  streets,  most  of  whom  assailed  her  with  howls  and 
execrations.  She  looked  upon  them  with  a  serene  smile,  as  if  she  were  rid- 
ing on  an  excursion  of  pleasure.  She  was  bound  to  the  plank.  The  glit- 
tering axe  glided  through  the  grove,  and  the  executioner,  lifting  her  severed 
head,  exhibited  it  to  the  people,  and  then  brutally  struck  the  cheek. 

Eobespierre  and  Danton,  the  idols  of  the  mob,  now  divided  the  supreme 
power  between  them.  The  organization  of  a  revolutionary  government  was 
simply  the  machine  by  means  of  which  they  operated. 

On  the  10th  of  August  there  was  another  magnificent  festival  in  Paris  to 
commemorate  the  adoption  of  the  Jacobin  Constitution.  The  celebrated 
painter  David  arranged  the  fete  with  great  artistic  skill,  and  again  all 
Paris,  though  on  the  verge  of  ruin,  was  in  a  blaze  of  illumination  and  in  a 
roar  of  triumph.  The  Austrian  armies  were  now  within  fifteen  days'  march 
of  Paris,  and  there  was  no  organized  force  which  could  effectually  arrest 
their  progress.  But  the  fear  of  the  old  Bourbon  despotism  rallied  the 
masses  to  maintain,  in  preference,  even  the  horrors  of  Jacobin  ferocity. 
The  aristocrats  crushed  the  ixople ;  the  Jacobins  crushed  the  aristocrats. 
The  populace  naturally  preferred  the  latter  rule. 

*  Proces  de  Charlotte  Corday  (Hist.  Pari.,  vol.  xxviii.,  p.  311,  338). 


340  THE  FKENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXXTT 

And  now  France  rose,  as  a  nation  never  rose  before.  At  the  motion  of 
Dantou  it  was  decreed  on  the  23rd  of  August, 

"  From  this  moment  until  when  the  enemy  shall  be  driven  from  the  ter- 
ritory of  the  French  Ecpublic,  all  the  French,  shall  be  in  permanent  requisi- 
tion for  the  service  of  the  armies.  The  young  men  shall  go  forth  to  fight. 
The  married  men  shall  forge  the  arms  and  transport  the  supplies.  The 
women  shall  make  tents  and  clothes,  and  attend  on  the  hospitals.  The 
children  shall  make  lint  out  of  rags ;  the  old  men  shall  cause  themselves  to 
be  carried  to  the  public  places,  to  excite  the  courage  of  the  warriors,  to 
preach  hatred  of  kings  and  love  of  the  Eepublic." 


-^^ 


:i\\ 


I'll   (11-    VDI.l  NTi:i. 


1793.]  THE  REIGN  OF  TERROR.  341 

All  unmarried  men  or  widowers  without  children,  between  the  ages  of 
eighteen  and  twentj-five,  were  to  assemble  at  appointed  rendezvous  and 
march  immediately.  This  act  raised  an  army  of  one  million  two  hundred 
thousand  men.  The  men  between  twenty -five  and  thirty  were  to  hold  them- 
selves in  readiness  to  follow.  And  those  between  thirty  and  sixty  were  to 
be  prepared  to  obey  orders  whenever  they  should  be  summoned  to  the 
field.     There  is  sublimity,  at  least,  in  such  energy. 

AH  France  was  instantly  converted  into  a  camp,  resounding  with  prepa- 
rations for  war.  In  La  Vendee  the  friends  of  the  Bourbons  had  rallied. 
The  Convention  decreed  its  utter  destruction,  the  death  of  every  man,  con- 
flagration of  the  dwellings,  destruction  of  the  crops,  and  the  removal  of  the 
women  and  children  to  some  other  jDrovince,  where  they  should  be  support- 
ed at  the  expense  of  the  government.  It  was  sternly  resolved  that  no  mercy 
whatever  should  be  shown  to  Frenchmen  who  were  co-operating  with  for- 
eigners to  rivet  anew  upon  France  the  chains  of  Bourbon  despotism.  These 
decrees  were  executed  with  merciless  fidelity.  The  illustrious  Carnot,  who, 
to  use  his  own  words,  "had  the  ambition  of  the  three  hundred  Spartans, 
going  to  defend  Thermoi3yljB,"  organized  and  disciplined  fourteen  armies, 
and  selected  for  them  able  leaders. 


EXECUTION   IN   LA  VENDEE. 


•  While  matters  were  in  this  condition,  the  inhabitants  of  Marseilles,  Lyons, 
and  Toulon  rose,  overpowered  the  Jacobins,  and,  raising  the  banner  of  the 
Bourbons,  invited  the  approach  of  the  Allies.  Toulon  was  the  naval  arsenal 
of  France,  a  large  French  fleet  crowded  its  port,  and  its  warehouses  were 
filled  with  naval  stores.  Lord  Hood,  with  an  English  squadron,  was  cruis- 
ing off  the  coast.  The  Eoyalists,  Admiral  Troyoff  at  their  head,  gave  the 
signal  to  the  English,  and  basely  surrendered  to  them  the  forts,  shipping, 
and  stores.  It  was  a  fearful  loss  to  the  Revolutionists.  Lord  Hood,  the 
British  admiral,  immediately  entered  with  his  fleet,  took  possession,  and 
issued  a  proclamation  in  which  he  said, 

"  Considering  that  the  sections  of  Toulon  have,  by  the  commissioners 


342  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXXII. 

whom  they  have  sent  to  me,  made  a  solemn  declaration  in  favor  of  Louis 
XVII.  and  a  monarchical  government,  and  that  they  will  use  their  utmost 
efibrts  to  break  the  chains  which  fetter  their  country,  and  re-establish  the 
Constitution  as  it  was  accepted  by  their  defunct  sovereign  in  1789,  I  repeat 
by  this  present  declaration  that  I  take  possession  of  Toulon,  and  shall  keep 
it  solely  as  a  deposit  for  Louis  XVIL,  and  that  only  till  peace  is  re-estab- 
lished in  France."* 
r  An  array  of  sixty  thousand  men  was  sent  against  rebellious  Lyons,  The 
ij  city,  after  a  prolonged  siege  and  the  endurance  of  innumerable  woes,  was 
captured.  The  Convention  decreed  that  it  should  be  utterly  destroyed, 
and  that  over  its  ruins  should  be  reared  a  monument  with  the  inscription, 
"•Lyons  made  ivar  tqjon  Liberty:  Lyons  is  no  moreP''  The  cruelties  inflicted 
upon  the  Royalists  of  this  unhappy  city  are  too  painful  to  contemplate. 
The  miagination  can  hardly  exaggerate  them.  Fouche  and  Collot  d'Her- 
bois,  the  prominent  agents  in  this  bloody  vengeance,  were  atheists.  In 
contempt  of  Christianity,  they  ordered  the  Bible  and  the  Cross  to  be  borne 
through  the  streets  on  an  ass ;  the  ass  was  comj^elled  to  drink  of  the  conse- 
crated wine  from  the  communion-cup.  Six  thousand  of  the  citizens  of 
Lyons  perished  in  these  sanguinary  persecutions,  and  twelve  thousand  were 
driven  into  exile.  The  Revolutionary  Tribunal  was  active  night  and  day 
condemning  to  death.  One  morning  a  young  girl  rushed  into  the  hall,  ex- 
claiming, 

"  There  remain  to  me,  of  all  our  family,  only  my  brothers.  Mother,  fath- 
er, sisters,  uncles — you  have  butchered  all.  And  now  you  are  going  to  con- 
demn my  brothers.  In  mercy  ordain  that  I  may  ascend  the  scaffold  with 
them." 

Her  prayer  of  anguish  was  refused,  and  the  poor  child  threw  herself  into 
the  Rhone. 

The  Royalist  insurrection  in  La  Vendee,  after  a  long  and  terrible  conflict, 
was  crushed  out.  No  language  can  describe  the  horrors  of  vengeance  which 
ensued.  The  tale  of  brutality  is  too  awful  to  be  told.  Demons  could  not 
have  been  more  infernal  in  mercilessness. 

"Death  by  fire  and  the  sword,"  writes  Lamartine,  "made  a  noise,  scat- 
tered blood,  and  left  bodies  to  be  buried  and  be  counted.  The  silent  waters 
of  the  Loire  were  dumb  and  would  render  no  account.  The  bottom  of  the 
sea  alone  would  know  the  number  of  the  victims.  Carrier  caused  mariners 
to  be  brought  as  pitiless  as  himself.  He  ordered  them,  without  much  mys- 
tery, to  pierce  plug-holes  in  a  certain  number  of  decided  vessels,  so  as  to 
sink  them  with  their  living  cargoes  in  parts  of  the  river. 

"  These  orders  were  first  executed  secretly  and  under  the  color  of  acci- 
dents of  navigation.  But  soon  these  naval  executions,  of  which  the  waves 
of  the  Loire  bore  witness  even  to  its  mouth,  became  a  spectacle  for  Carrier 
and  for  his  courtiers.  He  furnished  a  galley  of  pleasure,  of  which  he  made 
a  present  to  his  accomplice  Lambertye,  under  pretext  of  watching  the  banks' 
of  the  river.  This  vessel,  adorned  with  all  the  delicacies  of  furniture,  pro- 
vided with  all  the  wines  and  all  the  necessaries  of  feasting,  became  the  most 

*  After  the  dcnth  of  Louis  XVL  tho  Royalists  consiilerod  ihc  young  Dauphin,  then  imprisoned 
in  the  tower,  as  the  legitimate  king,  with  the  title  of  Louis  XVII. 


1793.] 


THE  KEIGN  OF  TERROR. 


343 


SIA8SACEE8  IN  LYONS. 


general  theatre  of  these  executions.  Carrier  embarked  therein  sometimes 
himself,  with  his  executioners  and  his  courtesans,  to  make  trips  upon  the 
water.  While  he  yielded  himself  up  to  the  joys  of  love  and  wine  on  deck, 
his  victims,  inclosed  in  the  hold,  saw,  at  a  given  signal,  the  valves  open,  and 
the  waves  of  the  Loire  swallow  them  up.  A  stifled  groaning  announced  to 
the  crew  that  hundreds  of  lives  had  just  breathed  their  last  under  their  feet. 
They  continued  their  orgies  upon  this  floating  sepulchre. 

"Sometimes  Carrier,  Lambertye,  and  their  accomplices  rejoiced  in  the 
cruel  pleasure  of  this  spectacle  of  agony.  They  caused  victims  of  either  sex, 
in  couples,  to  mount  upon  the  deck.     Stripped  of  their  garments,  they  bound 


3^  THE  FKEXCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXXII. 

them  face  to  face,  one  to  the  other— a  priest  with  a  nun,  a  young  man  with 
a  young  girl  They  suspended  them,  thus  naked  and  interlaced,  by  a  cord 
passed  under  the  shoulders  through  a  block  of  the  vessel.  They  sported 
with  horrible  sarcasms  on  this  parody  of  marriage  in  death,  and  then  flung 
the  victims  into  the  river.  This  cannibal  sport  was  termed  '  Eepublican 
Marriasres.' " 


>, 


DEO\\->LNa    VICTIilS   IN   THE  LOIEE. 


liobespierre,  informed  of  these  demoniac  deeds,  recalled  Carrier,  but  he 
did  not  dare  to  bring  an  act  of  accusation  against  the  wretch,  lest  he  should 
peril  his  own  head  by  being  charged  with  sympathy  with  the  Koyalists.  It 
is  grateful  to  record  that  Carrier  himself  was  eventually  conducted,  amid 
the  execrations  of  the  community,  to  the  scafibld.* 

The  prisons  of  Paris  were  now  filled  with  victims.  Municipal  instruc- 
tions, issued  by  Chaumette,  catalogued  as  follows  those  who  should  be  ar- 
rested as  suspected  persons :  1.  Those  who,  by  crafty  addresses,  check  the 
energy  of  the  people.  2.  Those  who  mysteriously  deplore  the  lot  of  the 
jieople,  and  propagate  bad  news  with  affected  grief,  3.  Those  who,  silent 
respecting  the  faults  of  the  Royalists,  declaim  against  the  fixults  of  the  Patri- 
ots. 4.  Those  who  pity  those  against  whom  the  law  is  obliged  to  take 
measures.     5.  Those  who  associate  with  aristocrats,  priests,  and  moderates, 

*  Carrier  was  heard  to  sny  one  dny,  vliilo  lin'nkfastinp;  in  n  rcstnnrant,  that  France  was  too 
densely  pojtulated  for  a  ropulilic,  and  that  it  was  necessary  to  kill  otV  at  least  one  third  of  the  in- 
hal)itants  before  tliey  could  have  a  jjood  mivcrnincnt.  It  is  estimated  that  fifteen  thousand  were 
massacred  iu  La  Vcndcu  at  his  command. 


1793.]  EXECUTION  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE  AND  MADAME  ELIZABETH.  345 

and  take  an  interest  in  their  fate.  6.  Those  who  have  not  taken  an  active 
part  in  the  Eevolution.  7.  Those  who  have  received  the  Constitution  with 
indifference  and  have  expressed  fears  respecting  its  duration.  8.  Those 
who,  though  they  have  done  nothing  against  liberty,  have  done  nothing  for 
it.  9.  Those  who  do  not  attend  the  sections.  10.  Those  who  speak  con- 
temptuously of  the  constituted  authorities.  11.  Those  who  have  signed 
counter-revolutionary  petitions.  12.  The  partisans  of  La  Fayette,  and  those 
who  marched  to  the  charge  in  the  Champ  de  Mars. 

There  were  but  few  persons  in  Paris  who  were  not  liable  to  be  arrested, 
by  the  machinations  of  any  enemy,  upon  some  one  of  these  charges.  Many 
thousands  were  soon  incarcerated.  The  prisons  of  the  Maire,  La  Force,  the 
Conciergerie,  the  Abbaye,  St.  Pelagic,  and  the  Madelonettes  were  crowded 
to  their  utmost  capacity.  Then  large  private  mansions,  the  College  of  Du- 
plessis,  and  finally  the  spacious  Palace  of  the  Luxembourg  were  converted 
into  prisons,  and  were  filled  to  suffocation  with  the  suspected.  In  these 
abodes,  surrendered  to  filth  and  misery,  with  nothing  but  straw  to  lie  upon, 
the  most  brilliant  men  and  women  of  Paris  were  huddled  together  with  the 
vilest  outcasts.  After  a  time,  however,  those  who  had  property  were  per- 
mitted to  surround  themselves  with  such  comforts  as  their  means  would 
command.  From  these  various  prisons  those  who  were  to  be  tried  before 
the  Eevolutionary  Tribunal  were  taken  to  the  Conciergerie,  which  adjoined 
the  Palace  of  Justice,  where  the  tribunal  held  its  session.  A  trial  was  al- 
most certain  condemnation,  and  the  guillotine  knew  no  rest.  Miserable 
France  was  now  surrendered  to  the  Eeign  of  Terror.  The  mob  had  become 
the  sovereign. 


CHAPTEE  XXXIIL 

EXECUTION  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE  AND   MADAME   ELIZABETH. 

Marie  Antoinette  in  the  Temple. — Conspiracies  for  the  Rescue  of  the  Royal  Family. — The  young 
Dauphin  torn  from  his  Mother. — Phrensy  of  the  Queen. — She  is  removed  to  the  Conciergerie. 
— Indignities  and  Woes. — The  Queen  led  to  Trial. — Letter  to  her  Sister. — The  Execution  of 
the  Queen. — Madame  Elizabeth  led  to  Trial  and  Execution. — Fate  of  the  Princess  and  the 
Dauphin. 

The  populace  now  demanded  the  head  of  Marie  Antoinette,  whom  they 
had  long  been  taught  implacably  to  hate.*    We  left  her  on  the  21st  of 

*  Thomas  Jefferson,  during  his  residence  in  Paris,  formed  a  very  unfavorable  opinion  of  Marie 
Antoinette.  Speaking  of  the  good  intentions  of  Louis  XVI.,  he  says,  "But  he  had  a  queen  of 
absolute  sway  over  his  weak  mind  and  timid  virtue,  and  of  a  character  the  reverse  of  his  in  all 
points.  This  angel,  as  gaudily  painted  in  the  rhapsodies  of  Burke  with  some  smartness  of  fancy 
but  no  sound  sense,  was  proud,  disdainful  of  restraint,  indignant  at  all  obstacles  to  her  will,  eager 
in  pursuit  of  pleasure,  and  firm  enough  to  hold  to  her  desires  or  perish  in  their  wreck.  Her  inor- 
dinate gamblings  and  dissipations,  with  those  of  the  Count  d'Artois  and  others  of  her  clique,  had 
been  a  sensible  item  in  the  exhaustion  of  the  treasury,  which  called  into  action  the  reforming 
hand  of  the  nation ;  and  her  opposition  to  it,  her  inflexible  perverseness  and  dauntless  spirit  led 
herself  to  the  guillotine,  drew  the  king  on  with  her,  and  plunged  the  world  into  crimes  and  ca- 
lamities which  will  for  ever  stain  the  pages  of  modern  history.  I  have  ever  believed  that  had 
there  been  no  queen  there  would  have  been  no  revolution.  The  king  would  have  gone  hand  in 
hand  with  the  wisdom  of  his  sounder  counselors,  who,  guided  by  the  increased  lights  of  the  age, 


346  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXXIII. 

January  in  the  Temple,  overwhelmed  with  agony.  Swoon  succeeded  swoon 
as  she  listened  to  the  clamor  iu  the  streets  which  accompanied  her  husband 
to  the  guillotine.  The  rumbling  of  the  cannon,  on  their  return,  and  the 
shouts  of  Vive  la  RepuUique  beneath  her  windows  announced  that  the  trag- 
edy was  terminated.  The  Commune  cruelly  refused  to  allow  her  any  details 
of  the  last  hours  of  the  king,  and  even  Clery,  his  faithful  servant,  was  im- 
prisoned, so  that  he  could  not  even  place  in  her  hands  the  lock  of  hair  and 
the  marriage  ring  which  the  king  had  intrusted  to  him. 

Many  conspiracies  were  formed  for  the  rescue  of  the  royal  family,  which 
led  to  a  constant  increase  of  the  rigors  of  their  captivity.  The  queen  refused 
to  resume  her  walks  in  the  garden  as  she  could  not  endure  to  pass  the  door 
of  the  king's  apartment.  But,  after  long  seclusion,  for  the  sake  of  the  health 
of  her  children  she  consented  to  walk  with  them  each  day,  for  a  few  mo- 
ments, on  the  platform  of  the  tower.  The  Commune  immediately  ordered 
the  platform  to  be  surrounded  with  high  boards,  so  that  the  captives  might 
not  receive  any  tokens  of  recognition  from  their  friends. 

For  four  months  Marie  Antoinette,  Madame  Elizabeth,  and  the  children 
had  the  consolation  of  condoling  with  each  other  in  their  misery.  But  on 
the  night  of  the  -ith  of  July  the  clatter  of  an  armed  band  was  heard  ascend- 
ing the  tower,  and  some  commissioners  tumultuously  entered  her  chamber. 
They  read  to  her  a  decree  announcing  that  her  son,  the  dauphin,  was  to  be 
taken  from  her  and  imprisoned  by  himself  The  poor  child,  as  he  listened 
to  the  reading  of  this  cruel  edict,  was  frantic  with  terror.  He  threw  himself 
into  his  mother's  arms  and  shrieked  out, 

"  Oh  !  mother,  mother,  do  not  abandon  me  to  those  men.  They  will  kill 
me  as  they  did  papa." 

The  queen,  in  a  delirium  of  agony,  grasped  her  child  and  placing  him 
upon  the  bed  behind  her,  with  eyes  glaring  like  a  tigress,  bade  defiance  to 
the  officers,  declaring  that  they  should  tear  her  in  pieces  before  they  should 
take  her  boy.  Even  the  officers  were  overcome  by  her  heart-rending  grief, 
and  for  two  hours  refrained  from  taking  the  child  by  violence.  The  ex- 
hausted mother  at  length  fell  in  a  swoon,  and  the  child  was  taken,  shrieking 
with  terror,  from  the  room.     She  never  saw  her  son  again. 

A  few  weeks  of  woe  passed  slowly  away,  when,  early  in  August,  she  was 
awakened  from  her  sleep  just  after  midnight  by  a  band  of  armed  men  who 
came  to  convey  her  to  the  prison  of  the  Conciergerie,  where  she  was  to  await 
her  trial.  The  queen  had  already  drained  the  cup  of  misery  to  the  dregs, 
and  nothing  could  add  to  her  woe.  She  rose,  in  the  stupor  of  despair,  and 
began  to  dress  herself  in  the  presence  of  the  officers.  Her  daughter  and 
Madame  Elizabeth  threw  themselves  at  the  feet  of  the  men,  and  implored 

wished  rmly,  with  the  same  pace,  to  advance  the  principles  of  their  social  Constitution.  The  deed 
wliicli  tlostid  tlie  mortal  course  of  these  sovereigns  I  shall  neither  approve  nor  condemn." — Life 
of  Jejr<  rson,  by  Ruiukdl,  vol  i.,  j).  533. 

As  Jctl'orson  was  iniimate  with  La  Fayette  and  other  prominent  popular  leaders,  it  is  evident 
that  these  views  were  those  which  were  penerally  entertained  of  the  queen  at  tliat  time.  It  id 
deejily  to  be  reprettcd  that  no  subsequent  developments  can  lead  one  to  doubt  tliat  they  were  es- 
sentially correct.  While  we  weeji  over  tlie  woes  of  the  queen  we  must  not  forpet  that  she  was 
cndeavorinR  with  ull  her  energy  to  rivet  the  chains  of  unlimited  despotism  upon  twenty-five  mil- 
lions of  i>eoplc. 


1793.]  EXECUTION  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE  AND  MADAME  ELIZABETH.    347 

them  not  to  take  the  queen  from  them.  They  might  as  well  have  plead 
with  the  granite  blocks  of  their  prison. 

Pressing  her  daughter  for  a  moment  convulsively  to  her  heart,  she  cov- 
ered her  with  kisses,  spoke  a  few  words  of  impassioned  tenderness  to  her 
sister,  and  then,  as  if  fearing  to  cast  a  last  look  upon  these  objects  of  her  af- 
fection, hurried  from  the  room.  In  leaving  she  struck  her  forehead  against 
the  beam  of  the  low  door. 

"  Did  you  hurt  yourself?"  inquired  one  of  the  men. 

*'  Oh  no !"  was  her  reply,  "  nothing  now  can  farther  harm  me." 

A  carriage  was  waiting  for  her  at  the  door.  Escorted  by  gens  cfarmes  she 
was  conducted,  through  the  gloom  of  midnight,  to  the  dungeon  where  she 
she  was  to  await  her  condemnation. 

The  world-renowned  prison  of  the  Conciergerie  consists  of  a  series  of  sub- 
terranean dungeons  beneath  the  floor  of  the  Palais  de  Justice.  More  gloomy 
tombs  the  imagination  can  hardly  conceive.  Down  the  dripping  and  slimy 
steps  the  queen  was  led,  by  the  light  of  a  tallow  candle,  until,  through  a 
labyrinth  of  corridors,  she  approached  the  iron  door  of  her  dungeon.  The 
rusty  hinges  grated  as  the  door  was  opened,  and  she  was  thrust  in.     Two 


MAEIE  ANTOINETTE  IN  THE  CUNCIEEGEKIE. 


soldiers  accompanied  her,  with  drawn  swords,  and  who  were  commanded,  in 
defiance  of  all  the  instincts  of  delicacy,  not  to  allow  her  to  be  one  moment 
absent  from  their  sight.  The  one  candle  gave  just  light  enough  to  reveal 
the  horrors  of  her  cell.  The  floor  was  covered  with  mud,  and  streams  of 
water  trickled  down  the  stone  walls.     A  miserable  pallet,  with  a  dirty  cov- 


348  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXXIII. 

cring  of  coarse  and  tattered  cloth,  a  small  pine  table,  and  a  chair  constituted 
the  only  furniture.     So  deep  was  the  fall  from  the  saloons  of  Versailles. 

Here  the  queen  remained  for  two  months,  her  misery  being  slightly  alle- 
viated by  the  kind-heartedness  of  Madame  Eichard,  the  wife  of  the  jailer, 
who  did  every  thing  the  rigorous  rules  would  admit  to  mitigate  her  woes. 
"With  her  own  hand  she  prepared  food  for  the  queen,  obtained  for  her  a  few 
articles  of  furniture,  and  communicated  to  her  daily  such  intelligence  as  she 
could  obtain  of  her  sister  and  her  children.  The  friends  of  the  queen  were 
untiring  in  their  endeavors,  by  some  conspiracy,  to  effect  her  release.  A 
gentleman  obtained  admittance  to  the  queen's  cell,  and  presented  her  with  a 
rose,  containing  a  note  hidden  among  its  petals.  One  of  the  gens  d'armes  de- 
tected the  attempt;  and  the  jailer  and  his  wife,  for  their  suspected  conniv- 
ance, were  both  arrested  and  thrown  into  the  dungeons. 

Other  jailers  were  provided  for  the  prison,  M.  and  Madame  Bault;  but 
they  also  had  humane  hearts,  and  wept  over  the  woes  of  Marie  Antoinette. 
The  queen's  wardrobe  consisted  only  of  two  robes,  one  white,  one  black,  and 
three  chemises.  From  the  humidity  of  her  cell  these  rapidly  decayed,  with 
her  shoes  and  stockings,  and  fell  into  tatters.  Madame  Bault  was  permitted 
to  assist  the  queen  in  mending  these,  but  was  not  allowed  to  furnish  any 
new  apparel.  Books  and  writing  materials  were  also  prohibited.  "With  the 
point  of  her  needle  she  kept  a  brief  memorandum  of  events  on  the  stucco 
of  her  walls,  and  also  inscribed  brief  lines  of  poetry  and  sentences  from 
Scripture. 

On  the  14th  of  October  the  queen  was  conducted  from  her  dungeon  to  the 
halls  above  for  trial.  Surrounded  by  a  strong  escort,  she  was  led  to  the 
bench  of  the  accused.  Her  accusation  was  that  she  abhorred  the  Revolution 
which  had  beheaded  her  husband  and  plunged  her  whole  family  into  unut- 
terable woe. 

The  queen  was  dressed  in  the  garb  of  extreme  poverty.  Grief  had  whit- 
ened her  hair,  and  it  was  fast  falling  from  her  head.  Her  eyes  were  sunken, 
and  her  features  wan  and  wasted  with  woe. 

"  What  is  your  name  ?"  inquired  one  of  the  judges. 

"  I  am  called  Marie  Antoinette  of  Lorraine,  in  Austria,"  answered  the 
queen. 

"  What  is  your  condition  ?"  was  the  next  question. 

"  I  am  widow  of  Louis,  formerly  King  of  the  French,"  was  the  reply 

"What  is  your  age?"  ^^ 

"Thirty-seven." 

The  long  act  of  accusation  was  then  read.  Among  other  charges  was  the 
atrocious  one  of  attempting,  by  depravity  and  debauchery,  to  corrupt  her 
own  son,  "with  the  intention  of  enervating  the  soul  and  body  of  that  child, 
and  of  reigning,  in  his  name,  over  the  ruin  of  his  understanding." 

Tlic  queen  recoiled  from  this  charge  with  a  gesture  of  horror,  and,  wlien 
asked  wliy  she  did  not  reply  to  the  accusation,  she  said, 

"I  have  not  answered  it  because  there  are  accusations  to  which  nature  re- 
fuses to  re]>ly.     I  appeal  to  all  mothers  if  such  a  crime  be  possible." 

The  trial  continued  for  two  days.  When  all  the  accusations  had  been 
heard,  the  queen  was  asked  if  she  had  any  thing  to  say.     She  replied 


1793.]  EXECUTION  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE  AND  IklADAME  ELIZABETH.  349 

"  I  was  a  queen,  and  yon  took  away  my  crown ;  a  wife,  and  you  killed 
my  husband ;  a  mother,  and  you  deprived  me  of  my  children.  My  blood 
alone  remains.     Take  it ;  but  do  not  make  me  suffer  long." 


TEIAL  OF  MABIB  ANTOINETTE. 


At  four  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  16th  she  listened  to  her  sentence 
condemning  her  to  die.  In  the  dignity  of  silence,  and  without  the  tremor 
of  a  muscle,  she  accepted  her  doom.  As  she  was  led  from  the  court-room  to 
her  dungeon,  to  prepare  for  her  execution,  the  brutal  populace,  with  stamp- 
ings and  clappings,  applauded  the  sentence.  Being  indulged  with  j^en  and 
paper  in  these  last  hours,  she  wrote  as  follows  to  her  sister : 


"  October  IGth,  half  past  four  in  the  morning. 

"I  write  you,  my  sister,  for  the  last  time.  I  have  been  condemned,  not 
to  an  ignominious  death — that  only  awaits  criminals — but  to  go  and  rejoin 
your  brother.  Innocent  as  he,  I  hope  to  show  the  same  firmness  as  he  did 
in  these  last  moments.  I  grieve  bitterly  at  leaving  my  poor  children  ;  you 
know  that  I  existed  but  for  them  and  you — you  who  have,  by  your  friend- 
ship, sacrificed  all  to  be  with  us.  In  what  a  position  do  I  leave  you.  I 
have  learned,  by  the  pleadings  on  my  trial,  that  my  daughter  was  separated 
from  you.     Alas !  my  poor  child.     I  dare  not  write  to  her.     She  could  not 


3uO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXXHI. 

receive  my  letter.     I  know  not  even  if  tliis  may  reach  you.     Receive  my 
blessing  for  both. 

"  I  hope  one  day,  when  they  are  older,  they  may  rejoin  you  and  rejoice  in 
liberty  at  your  tender  care.  May  their  friendship  and  mutual  confidence 
form  their  happiness.  May  my  daughter  feel  that,  at  her  age,  she  ought  al- 
ways to  aid  her  brother  with  that  advice  with  which  the  greater  experience 
she  possesses  and  her  friendship  should  inspire  her.  May  my  son,  on  his 
part,  render  to  his  sister  every  care  and  service  which  affection  can  dictate. 
Let  my  son  never  forget  the  last  words  of  his  father.  I  repeat  them  to  him 
expressly.     Let  him  never  attempt  to  avenge  our  deathy 

Having  finished  the  letter,  which  was  long,  she  folded  it  and  kissed  it  re- 
peatedly, "  as  if  she  could  thus  transmit  the  warmth  of  her  lips  and  the 
moisture  of  her  tears  to  her  children."  She  then  threw  herself  upon  the 
pallet  and  slept  quietly  for  two  or  three  hours.  A  few  rays  of  morning 
light  were  now  struggling  in  through  the  grated  bars  of  the  ^vindow.  The 
daughter  of  Madame  Bault  came  in  to  dress  her  for  the  guillotine.  She  put 
on  her  white  robe.  A  white  handkerchief  covered  her  shoulders,  and  a 
white  cap,  bound  around  her  temples  by  a  black  ribbon,  covered  her  hair. 

It  was  a  cold  autumnal  morning,  and  a  chill  fog  filled  the  streets  of  Paris. 
At  eleven  o'clock  the  executioners  led  her  from  her  cell.  She  cordially 
embraced  the  kind-hearted  daughter  of  the  concierge,  and,  having  with  her 
own  hands  cut  off  her  hair,  allowed  herself  to  be  bound,  without  a  murmur, 
and  issued  from  the  steps  of  the  Conciergerie.  Instead  of  a  carriage,  the 
coarse  car  of  the  condemned  awaited  her  at  the  gateway  of  the  prison.  For 
a  moment  she  recoiled  from  this  unanticipated  humiliation,  but  immediately 
recovering  herself  she  ascended  the  cart.  There  was  no  seat  in  the  car, 
and,  as  her  hands  were  bound  behind  her,  she  was  unable  to  support  her- 
self from  the  jolting  over  the  pavement.  As  she  was  jostled  rudely  to  and 
.fro,  in  the  vain  attempt  to  preserve  her  equilibrium,  the  multitudes  throng- 
ing the  streets  shouted  in  derision.  They  had  been  taught  to  hate  her,  to 
regard  her  not  only  as  the  implacable  foe  of  popular  liberty,  which  she  was, 
but  as  the  most  infamous  of  women,  which  she  was  not.  "  These,"  they 
cried,  "are  not  your  cushions  of  Trianon." 

It  was  a  long  ride  to  the  scaffold,  during  which  the  queen  suffered  all 
that  insult,  derision,  and  contumely  can  inflict.  JThe  procession  crossed  the 
Seine  by  the  Pont  an  Change^  and  traversed  the  Rue  St.  Honore.  Upon 
reaching  the  Place  of  the  Revolution  the  cart  stopped  for  a  moment  near 
the  entrance  of  the  garden  of  the  Tuileries.  Marie  Antoinette  for  a  few 
moments  contemplated  in  silence  those  scenes  of  former  happiness  and 
grandeur.  A  few  more  revolutions  of  the  wheels  placed  her  at  the  foot 
of  the  guillotine.  She  mounted  to  the  scaflbld,  and  inadvertently  trod  upon 
the  foot  of  the  executioner. 

"  Pardon  me,"  said  the  queen,  with  as  much  courtesy  as  if  she  had  been 
in  one  of  the  saloons  of  Versailles.  Kneeling,  she  uttered  a  brief  i^rayer, 
and  then,  turning  her  eyes  to  the  distant  towers  of  the  Tem})le,  she  said^ 

"  Adieu,  once  again,  my  children ;  I  go  to  rejoin  your  father." 

She  was  bound  to  the  plauk,  and  as  it  sank  to  its  "place  the  gleaming  axe 


1793.]   EXECUTION  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE  AND  MADAME  ELIZABETH.  351 

slid  through  the  groove,  and  the  head  of  the  queen  fell  into  the  basket.  The 
executioner  seized  the  gory  trophy  by  the  hair,  and,  walking  around  the 
scaftbld,  exhibited  it  to  the  crowd.  One  long  cry  of  Viue  la  BqmUiquef 
arose,  and  the  crowd  dispersed. 

While  these  fearful  scenes  were  passing,  Madame  Elizabeth  and  the 
princess  remained  in  the  tower  of  the  Temple.  Their  jailers  were  com- 
manded to  give  them  no  information  whatever.  The  young  dauphin  was 
imprisoned  by  himself. 

Six  months  of  gloom  and  anguish  which  no  pen  can  describe  passed  away, 
when,  on  the  night  of  the  9th  of  May,  1794,  as  Madame  Elizabeth  and  the 
young  princess,  Maria  Theresa,  were  retiring  to  bed,  a  band  of  armed  men, 
with  lanterns,  broke  into  their  room,  and  said  to  Madame  Elizabeth, 

"  You  must  immediately  go  with  us." 

"  And  my  niece  ?"  anxiously  inquired  the  meek  and  pious  aunt,  ever  for- 
getful of  self  in  her  solicitude  for  others.     "  Can  she  go  too  ?" 

"  We  want  you  only  now.  We  will  take  care  of  her  by-and-by,"  was  the 
unfeeling  answer. 

The  saint-like  Madame  Elizabeth  saw  that  the  long-dreaded  hour  of  sep- 
aration had  come,  and  that  her  tender  niece  was  to  be  left,  unprotected  and 
alone,  exposed  to  the  brutality  of  her  jailers.  She  pressed  Maria  Theresa 
to  her  bosom,  and  wept  in  uncontrollable  grief.  But  still,  endeavoring  to 
comfort  the  heart-stricken  child,  she  said, 

"I  shall  probably  soon  return  again,  my  dear  Maria." 

"  No,  you  won't,  citoyenne,"  rudely  interrupted  one  of  the  officers.  "  You 
will  never  ascend  these  stairs  again.    So  take  your  bonnet,  and  come  down." 

The  soldiers  seized  her,  led  her  down  the  stairs,  and  thrust  her  into  a 
carriage.  It  was  midnight.  Driving  violently  through  the  streets,  they 
soon  reached  the  gateway  of  the  Conciergerie.  The  Eevolutionary  Tribu- 
nal was,  even  at  that  hour,  in  session.  The  princess  was  dragged  immedi- 
ately to  their  bar.  With  twenty -four  others  of  all  ages  and  both  sexes,  she 
was  condemned  to  die.  Her  crime  was  that  she  was  sister  of  the  king,  and 
in  heart  hostile  to  the  Revolution.  She  was  led  to  one  of  the  dungeons  to 
be  dressed  for  the  scaffold.  In  this  hour  Christian  faith  was  triumphant. 
Trusting  in  God,  all  her  sorrows  vanished,  and  her  soul  w^as  in  perfect 
peace. 

With  her  twenty-two  companions,  all  of  noble  birth,  she  was  placed  in 
the  cart  of  the  condemned,  her  hands  bound  behind  her,  and  conducted  to 
the  guillotine.  Madame  Elizabeth  was  reserved  to  the  last.  One  by  one 
her  companions  were  led  up  the  scaffold  before  her,  and  she  saw  their  heads 
drop  into  the  basket.  She  then  peacefully  placed  her  head  upon  the  pillow 
of  death,  and  passed  away,  one  of  the  purest  and  yet  most  suffering  of 
earthly  spirits,  to  the  bosom  of  her  God. 

The  young  dauphin  lingered  for  eighteen  months  in  his  cell,  suffering  in- 
conceivable cruelties  from  his  jailer,  a  wretch  by  the  name  of  Simon,  until 
he  died  on  the  9th  of  June,  1795,  in  the  tenth  year  of  his  age.  Maria  The- 
resa now  alone  remained  of  the  family  of  Louis  XVI.  She  had  now  been 
in  prison  more  than  two  years.  At  length,  so  much  sympathy  was  excited 
in  behalf  of  this  suffering  child,  that  the  Assembly  consented  to  exchange 
her  with  the  Austrian  government  for  four  French  officers. 


352 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [CH-VP.  XXXIII. 


LOOTS  XVn.    IN  PRISON. 


On  the  19th  of  December,  1795,  she  was  led  from  the  Temple,  and,  ample 
arrangements  having  been  made  for  her  journey,  she  was  conducted,  with 
every  mark  of  respect  and  S3^mpathy,  to  the  frontiers.  In  the  Austrian 
court,  love  and  admiration  encircled  her.  But  this  stricken  child  of  grief 
had  received  wounds  which  time  could  never  entirely  heal.  A  full  year 
passed  before  a  smile  could  ever  be  won  to  visit  her  cheek.  She  subse- 
quently married  her  cousin,  the  Duke  of  Angoulcme,  son  of  Charles  X. 
With  the  return  of  the  Bourbons  she  returned  to  her  ancestral  halls  of  the 
Tuilcrics  and  Versailles.  But  upon  the  second  expulsion  of  the  Bourbons 
she  fled  with  them,  and  died,  a  few  years  ago,  at  an  advanced  age,  univet 
sally  respected.  Such  was  the  wreck  of  the  royal  family  of  France  by  the 
storm  of  revolution. 


1793.]  THE  JACOBINS  TKIUMPHANT.  353 


CHAPTEE  XXXIY. 

the  jacobins  triumphant. 

Views  of  the  Girondists.— Anecdote  of  Vergniaud.— The  Girondists  brought  to  Trial.— Suicide 
of  Valaze'. — Anguish  of  Desmoulins.— Fonfrede  and  Ducos. — Last  Supper  of  the  Girondists. — 
Their  Execution.— The  Duke  of  Orleans ;  his  Execution.— Activity  of  the  Guillotine.— Hu- 
mane Legislation.— Testimony  of  Desodoards.— Anacharsis  Cloots.— The  New  Era. 

The  Jacobins  now  resolved  to  free  themselves  from  all  internal  foes,  that 
they  might  more  vigorously  cope  with  all  Europe  in  arms  against  them. 
Marie  Antoinette  was  executed  the  16th  of  October.  On  the  22d,  the  Gi- 
rondists, twenty -two  in  number,  were  brought  before  the  Eevolutionary  Tri- 
bunal. They  were  the  most  illustrious  men  of  the  most  noble  party  to  which 
the  Eevolution  had  given  birth.  They  had  demolished  a  despotic  throne 
that  they  might  establish  a  constitutional  monarchy  upon  the  model  of  that 
of  England.*  With  great  generosity  they  had  placed  Louis  XVI.  on  that 
throne,  and  he  had  feigned  to  accept  the  Constitution.  But  with  hypocrisy 
which  even  his  subsequent  woes  can  not  obliterate,  he  secretly  rallied  his 
nobles  around  him,  or  rather  allowed  them  to  use  him  as  their  leader,  and 
appealed  to  the  armies  of  foreign  despotisms  to  overthrow  the  free  Consti- 
tution and  re-establish  the  old  feudal  tyranny. 

"The  question  thenceforth  was,  whether  their  sons  should,  as  in  times 
past  (as  in  Mr.  Burke's  splendid  Age  of  Chivalry),  be  sent  to  manure  Eu- 
rope with  their  bodies,  in  wars  undertaken  at  the  nod  of  a  courtesan — 
whether  their  wives  and  daughters,  cursed  with  beauty  enough  to  excite  a 
transient  emotion  of  sensuality,  should  be  lured  and  torn  from  them  and  de- 
bauched— whether  every  man  who  dared  to  utter  a  manly  political  thought 
or  to  assert  his  rights  against  rank  should  be  imprisoned  at  pleasure  without 
a  hearing — whether  the  toiling  masses,  for  the  purpose  of  supporting  lasciv- 
ious splendor,  of  building  Pares  aux  Cerfs^  of  pensioning  discarded  mistresses, 
of  swiftly  enriching  corrupt  favorites  and  minions  of  every  stamp,  should  be 
so  taxed  that  the  light  and  air  of  heaven  hardly  came  to  them  untaxed,  and 
that  they  should  be  so  sunk  by  exactions  of  every  kind  in  the  dregs  of  indi- 
gence that  a  short  crop  compelled  them  to  live  on  food  that  the  hounds,  if 
not  the  swine,  of  their  task-masters  would  reject ;  and,  finally,  whether,  when, 
in  the  bloody  sweat  of  their  agony,  they  asked  some  mitigation  of  their  hard 
fate,  they  should  be  answered  by  the  bayonets  of  foreign  mercenaries ;  and  a 
people — stout  manhood,  gentle  womanhood,  gray-haired  age,  and  tender  in- 

*  La  Fayette  was  an  illustrious  member  of  this  party.  Even  Jefferson  advised  to  make  the 
English  Constitution  the  model  for  France.  He  was  present  at  the  opening  of  the  Assembly  of 
Notables,  and  soon  after  wrote  to  La  Fayette,  "Keeping  the  good  model  of  your  neighboring 
countiy  before  your  eyes,  you  may  get  on  step  by  step  toward  a  good  Constitution.  Though  that 
model  is  not  perfect,  yet,  as  it  would  unite  more  suffrages  than  any  new  one  which  could  be  pro- 
posed, it  is  better  to  make  that  the  object." — Life  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  hy  Henry  S.  Randall, 
vol.  i.,  p.  406. 

z 


354  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXXIY. 

fancy,  turned  their  pale  faces  upward  and  shrieked  for  food,  fierce,  licentious 
nobles  should  scornfully  bid  them  eat  grass."* 

In  this  terrible  dilemma,  the  Girondists  felt  compelled  to  abandon  the 
newly-established  Constitutional  monarchy,  which  had  proved  treacherous 
to  its  trust,  and  to  fall  back  upon  a  republic,  as  their  only  asylum  from  de- 
struction, and  as  the  only  possible  refuge  for  French  liberty.  But  the  popu. 
lace  of  pTance,  ignorant  and  irreligious,  were  unfitted  for  a  republic.  Uni- 
versal suffrage  threw  the  power  into  the  hands  of  millions  of  newly-emanci- 
pated slaves.  Violence  and  blood  commenced  their  reign.  The  Girondists 
in  vain  endeavored  to  stem  the  flood.  They  were  overwhelmed.  Such  is 
their  brief  history. 

The  Girondists  had  been  for  some  time  confined  in  the  dungeons  of  the 
Conciergerie.  They  were  in  a  state  of  extreme  misery.  Vergniaud,  one  of 
the  most  noble  and  eloquent  of  men,  was  their  recognized  leader.  His 
brother-in-law,  M.  Alluaud,  came  to  the  prison  to  bring  him  some  money. 
A  child  of  M.  Alluaud,  ten  years  of  age,  accompanied  his  father.  Seeing 
his  uncle  with  sunken  eyes  and  haggard  cheeks  and  disordered  hair,  and 
with  his  garments  falling  in  tatters  around  him,  the  child  was  terrified,  and, 
bursting  into  tears,  clung  to  his  father's  knees. 

"  My  child,"  said  Vergniaud,  taking  him  in  his  lap,  "  look  well  at  me. 
When  you  are  a  man  you  can  say  that  3'ou  saw  Vergniaud,  the  founder  of 
the  Republic,  at  the  most  glorious  period,  and  in  the  most  splendid  costume 
he  ever  wore — that  in  which  he  sufiered  the  persecution  of  wretches,  and  in 
which  he  prepared  to  die  for  hberty." 

The  child  remembered  these  words,  and  repeated  them  fifty  years  after  to 
Lamartine.  At  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the  26th  of  October  the  ac- 
cused were  brought  before  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal.  Two  files  of  gens 
d'armes  conducted  them  into  the  hall  of  audience  and  placed  them  on  the 
prisoners'  bench.f  The  act  of  accusation,  drawn  up  by  Robespierre  and  St. 
Just,|  from  an  exceedingly  envenomed  pamphlet  written  by  Camille  Desmou- 
lins,  entitled  History  of  the  Faction  of  the  Gironde,  was  long  and  bitter.  The 
trial  lasted  several  days. 

On  the  30th  of  October,  at  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening,  the  debate  was 
closed.  At  midnight  they  were  summoned  to  the  bar  to  hear  the  verdict  of 
the  jury.  It  declared  them  all  guilty  of  treason,  and  condemned  them  to 
die  in  the  morning.  One  of  the  condemned,  Valaze,  immediately  plunged  a 
concealed  poniard  into  his  heart,  and  fell  dead  upon  the  floor.  Camille 
Desmoulins,  on  hearing  the  verdict,  was  overwhelmed  with  remorse,  and 
cried  out, 

"  It  is  my  pamphlet  which  has  killed  them.     "Wretch  that  I  am,  I  can  not 

•  Ilcnn-  S.  RantlftU,  Life  of  Jefferson,  vol.  i.,  p.  529. 

t  "  Never  miiec  tlic  Kniplits  Templar  had  a  party  appeared  more  numerous,  more  illustrious, 
or  more  ehxpient.  The  renown  of  the  aeeused,  tlicir  lonp  possession  of  power,  their  present  dan- 
ger, and  that  love  of  ven^canee  whieh  arises  in  men's  hearts  at  the  speetaele  of  mighty  reverses 
of  fortune,  had  eolk-.ted  ii  erowd  in  the  preeinets  of  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal.  A  strong  armed 
force  Mirrounded  the  Rates  of  the  Coneiergerie  and  the  Palais  do  Justice.  The  cannon,  the  uni- 
forniH,  the  Bentmcds,  the  fjmi,  itannes,  the  naked  sabres,  all  announced  one  of  those  jwlitical  crises 
in  which  a  trial  is  a  battle  and  justice  an  execution."— //i.s/.  6'i>.,  lamartine,  vol.  ii.,  p.  lf.9. 

:  Such  IS  tlie  Mat.nieut  of  Lamartine.  Thiers,  however,  says  that  the  act  was  drawn  up  bv 
.Amur,  a  barrister  of  (JrunoWc 


1793.]  THE  JACOBINS  TRIUMPHANT.  355 

bear  the  sight  of  my  work.     I  feel  their  blood  fall  on  the  hand  that  has  de- 
nounced them." 

There  were  two  brothers,  Fonfrede  and  Ducos,  among  the  condemned,  sit- 
ting side  by  side,  both  under  twenty-eight  years  of  age.  Fonfrede  threw  his 
arms  around  the  neck  of  Ducos,  and  bursting  into  tears  said, 

"  My  dear  brother,  I  cause  your  death ;  but  we  shall  die  together." 
Vergniaud  sat  in  silence,  with  an  expression  of  proud  defiance  and  con- 
tempt. Lasource  repeated  the  sententious  saying  of  one  of  the  ancients,  "I 
die  on  the  day  when  the  people  have  lost  their  reason.  You  will  die  when 
they  have  recovered  it."  As  they  left  the  court  to  return  to  their  cells,  there 
to  prepare  for  the  guillotine,  they  spontaneously  struck  up  together  the  hymn 
of  the  Marseillais : 

"  Allons,  enfans  de  la  patrie, 
Le  jour  de  gloire  est  arrive ; 
Centre  nous  de  la  tyrannie 
L'etendard  sanglant  est  leve."* 

As  they  passed  along  the  corridors  of  the  prison,  their  sublime  requiem 
echoed  along  the  gloomy  vaults,  and  awoke  the  sleepers  in  the  deepest  dun- 
geons. They  were  all  placed  in  one  large  room  opening  into  several  cells. 
The  lifeless  body  of  Yalaze  was  deposited  in  one  of  the  corners ;  for,  by  a 
decree  of  the  Tribunal,  his  remains  were  to  be  taken  in  the  cart  of  the  con- 
demned to  be  beheaded  with  the  rest.  A  sumptuous  banquet  was  sent  in  to 
them  by  their  friends  as  their  last  repast.  The  table  was  richly  spread,  dec- 
orated with  flowers,  and  supplied  with  all  the  delicacies  which  Paris  could 
furnish.  A  Constitutional  priest,  the  Abbe  Lambert,  a  friend  of  the  Girond- 
ists, had  obtained  admission  to  the  prison,  to  administer  to  them  the  last  sup- 
ports of  religion  and  to  accompany  them  to  the  guillotine.  To  him  we  are 
indebted  for  the  record  of  these  last  scenes. 

Vergniaud,  thirty-five  years  of  age,  presided.  He  had  but  little  to  bind 
him  to  life,  having  neither  father  nor  mother,  wife  nor  child.  In  quietness 
and  with  subdued  tones  they  partook  of  their  repast.  "When  the  cloth  was 
removed,  and  the  flowers  and  the  wine  alone  remained,  the  conversation  be- 
came more  animated.  The  j^oung  men  attempted  with  songs  and  affected 
gayety  to  disarm  death  of  its  terror ;  but  Vergniaud,  rallying  to  his  aid  his 
marvelous  eloquence,  endeavored  to  recall  them  to  more  worthy  thoughts. 

"  My  friends,"  said  he,  sorrowing  more  over  the  misfortunes  of  the  Eepub- 
lic  than  over  his  own,  "we  have  killed  the  tree  by  pruning  it.  It  was  too 
aged.  The  soil  is  too  weak  to  nourish  the  roots  of  civic  libertj^  This  peo- 
ple is  too  childish  to  wield  its  laws  without  hurting  itself  It  will  return  to 
its  kings  as  babes  return  to  their  toys.  "We  were  deceived  as  to  the  age  in 
which  we  were  born  and  in  which  we  die  for  the  freedom  of  the  world." 

"What  shall  we  be  doing  to-morrow  at  this  time?"  asked  Ducos.  Each 
answered  according  to  his  skepticism  or  his  faith.  Vergniaud  again  spake. 
"Never,"  says  the  Abbe  Lambert,  "had  his  look,  his  gesture,  his  language, 

*  • '  Come,  children  of  your  country,  come, 

The  day  of  glory  dawns  on  high, 
And  tyranny  has  wide  unfurl'd 

Her  blood-stained  banner  in  the  sky." 


356  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXXIY. 

and  Lis  voice  more  profoundly  affected  his  hearers."  His  discourse  was  of 
the  immortality  of  the  soul,  to  which  all  hstened  deeply  moved,  and  many 
wept. 

A  few  rays  of  morning  light  now  began  to  struggle  in  at  their  dungeon 
windows.  The  executioners  soon  entered  to  cut  off  their  hair  and  robe  them 
for  the  scaffold.  At  ten  o'clock  they  were  marched  in  a  column  to  the  gate 
•of  the  prison,  where  carts,  surrounded  by  an  immense  crowd,  awaited  them. 
As  they  entered  the  carts  they  all  commenced  singing  in  chorus  the  Mar- 
seilles Hymn,  and  continued  the  impassioned  strains  until  they  reached  the 
scaffold.    One  after  another  they  ascended  the  scaffold.    Sillery  was  the  first 


TUK  UlUOSUIBTS  OS   TIIKIU  M  AY   TO   EXECUTION. 


1793.]  THE  JACOBmS  TEIUIUPHANT.  357 

who  ascended.  He  was  bound  to  the  plank,  but  continued  in  a  full,  strong 
voice  to  join  in  the  song,  till  the  glittering  axe  glided  down  the  groove  and 
his  head  dropped  into  the  basket.  Each  one  followed  his  example.  The 
song  grew  fainter  as  head  after  head  fell,  till  at  last  one  voice  only  remained. 
It  was  that  of  Vergniaud.  As  he  was  bound  to  the  plank  he  commenced 
anew  the  strain, 

"Aliens,  enfans  de  la  patrie, 
Le  jour  de  gloire  est  arrive." 

The  axe  fell,  and  the  lips  of  Yergniaud  were  silent  in  death.  In  thirty-one 
minutes  the  executioner  had  beheaded  them  all.  Their  bodies  were  thrown 
into  one  cart,  and  were  cast  into  a  grave  by  the  side  of  that  of  Louis  XYI.* 

On  the  6th  of  November  the  Duke  of  Orleans  was  taken  from  prison  and 
led  before  the  Tribmial.  As  there  was  no  serious  charge  to  be  brought 
against  him,  he  had  not  apprehended  condemnation.  But  he  was  promptly 
doomed  to  die.  As  he  was  conducted  back  to  his  cell  to  prepare  for  imme- 
diate death,  he  exclaimed,  in  the  utmost  excitement  of  indignation, 

"  The  wretches  !  I  have  given  them  all — rank,  fortune,  ambition,  honor, 
the  future  reputation  of  my  house — and  this  is  the  recompense  they  reserve 
for  me !" 

At  three  o'-clock  he  was  placed  in  the  cart  with  three  other  condemned 
prisoners.  The  prince  was  elegantly  attired  and  all  eyes  were  riveted  upon 
him.  With  an  air  of  indifference  he  gazed  upon  the  crowd,  saying  nothing 
which  could  reveal  the  character  of  his  thoughts.  On  mounting  the  scaffold 
the  executioner  wished  to  draw  off  his  boots. 

"  No,  no,"  said  the  duke,  "j^ou  will  do  it  more  easily  afterward." 

He  looked  intently  for  a  moment  at  the  keen-edged  axe,  and,  without  a 
word,  submitted  to  his  fate.  Madame  Eoland  and  others  of  the  most  illus- 
trious of  the  friends  of  freedom  and  of  France  soon  followed  to  the  scaffold. 
And  now  every  day  the  guillotine  was  active  as  the  efficient  agent  of  gov- 
ernment, extinguishing  all  opposition  and  silencing  every  murmur.  The 
prisons  were  full,  new  arrests  were  every  day  made,  and  dismay  paralyzed 
all  hearts.  Four  thousand  six  hundred  in  the  prisons  of  Paris  alone  were 
awaiting  that  trial  which  almost  surely  led  to  condemnation. 

The  Jacobin  leaders,  trembling  before  Europe  in  arms,  felt  that  there  was 
no  safety  for  France  but  in  the  annihilation  of  all  internal  foes,  Dan  ton, 
Marat,  Eobespierre,  were  not  men  who  loved  blood  and  cruelty  ;  they  were 
resolute  fanatics  who  believed  it  to  be  well  to  cut  off  the  heads  of  many  thou- 
sand reputed  aristocrats,  that  a  nation  of  thirty  millions  might  enjoy  popu- 
lar liberty.  "While  the  Eevolutionary  Tribunal  was  thus  mercilessly  plying 
the  axe  of  the  executioner,  the  ISTational  Convention,  where  these  Jacobins 
reigned  supreme,  were  enacting  many  laws  which  breathed  the  spirit  of  hb- 

*  Edmund  Burke  has  most  unpardonably  calumniated  these  noble  men.  Even  Prof.  Smyth, 
who  espouses  his  opinions,  says,  "  Burke  was  a  man  who,  from  the  ardor  of  his  temperament  and 
the  vehemence  of  his  eloquence,  might  be  almost  said  to  have  ruined  every  cause  and  every  party 
that  he  espoused.  No  mind,  however  great,  that  will  not  bow  to  the  superiority  of  his  genius ; 
vet  no  mind,  however  inferior,  that  will  not  occasionally  feel  itself  entitled  to  look  down  upon 
iiim,  from  the  total  want  which  he  sometimes  shows  of  all  calmness  and  candor,  and  even,  at  par- 
ticular moments,  of  all  reasonableness  and  propriety  of  thought." — Lectures  on  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, hy  Will.  Smyth,  vol.  iii.,  p.  4. 


358  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXXIY. 

erty  and  humanity.  The  taxes  were  equally  distributed  in  proportion  to 
property.  Provision  was  made  for  the  poor  and  infirm.  All  orphans  were 
adopted  by  the  Republic.  Liberty  of  conscience  was  proclaimed.  Slavery 
and  the  slave-trade  were  indignantly  abolished.  Measures  were  adopted  for 
a  general  system  of  popular  instruction,  and  decisive  efforts  were  made  to 
unite  the  rich  and  the  poor  in  bonds  of  sympathy  and  alliance.* 

We  can  not  give  a  better  account  of  the  state  of  Paris  at  this  time  than  in 
the  words  of  Desodoards,  a  calm  philosophic  writer,  who  had  ardently  es- 
poused the  cause  of  the  Revolution,  and  who  consequently  will  not  be  sus- 
pected of  exaggeration. 

"What  then,"  says  he,  "was  this  Revolutionary  government?  Every 
right,  civil  and  political,  was  destroyed.  Liberty  of  the  press  and  of  thought 
was  at  an  end.  The  whole  people  were  divided  into  two  classes,  the  privi- 
leged and  the  proscribed.  Property  was  wantonly  violated,  lettres  de  cachet 
re-established,  the  asylum  of  dwellings  exposed  to  the  most  tyrannical  inqui- 
sition, and  justice  stripped  of  every  appearance  of  humanity  and  honor. 
France  was  covered  with  prisons ;  all  the  excesses  of  anarchy  and  despotism 
struggling  amid  a  confused  multitude  of  committees ;  terror  in  every  heart ; 
the  scaffold  devouring  a  hundred  every  day,  and  threatening  to  devour  a 
still  greater  number ;  in  every  house  melancholy  and  mourning,  and  in  ev- 
ery street  the  silence  of  the  tomb. 

"  War  was  waged  against  the  tenderest  emotions  of  nature.  Was  a  tear 
shed  over  the  tomb  of  father,  wife,  or  friend,  it  was,  according  to  these  Jac- 
obins, a  robbery  of  the  Republic.  Not  to  rejoice  when  the  Jacobins  rejoiced 
was  treason  to  freedom.  All  the  mob  of  low  officers  of  justice,  some  of 
whom  could  scarcely  read,  sported  with  the  lives  of  men  without  the  slight- 
est shame  or  remorse.  Often  an  act  of  accusation  was  served  upon  one  per- 
son which  was  intended  for  another.  The  officer  only  changed  the  name  on 
perceiving  his  error,  and  often  did  not  change  it.  Mistakes  of  the  most  in- 
conceivable nature  were  made  with  impunity.  The  Duchess  of  Biron  was 
judged  by  an  act  drawn  up  against  her  agent.  A  young  man  of  twenty  was 
guillotined  for  having,  as  it  was  alleged,  a  son  bearing  arms  against  France. 
A  lad  of  sixteen,  by  the  name  of  Mallet,  was  arrested  under  an  indictment 
for  a  man  of  forty,  named  Bellay. 

"  '  What  is  your  age?'  inquired  the  president,  looking  at  him  with  some 
surprise. 

"  '  Sixteen,'  replied  the  youth. 

"  '  Well,  you  are  quite  forty  in  crime,'  said  the  magistrate ;  '  take  him  to 
the  guillotine.' 

"  From  every  corner  of  France  \dctims  were  brought  in  carts  to  the  Con- 
ciergerie.  This  prison  was  emptied  every  day  by  the  guillotine,  and  refilled 
from  other  prisons.  These  removals  were  made  in  the  dark,  lest  public 
sympathy  should  be  excited.  Fifty  or  sixty  poor  creatures,  strait  bound, 
conducted  by  men  of  ferocious  aspect,  a  drawn  sabre  in  one  hand  and  a  light- 
ed torch  in  the  other,  passed  in  this  manner  through  the  silence  of  night. 
The  passenger  wlio  chanced  to  meet  them  had  to  smother  his  pity.  A  sigh 
would  have  united  him  to  tlic  funeral  train. 

*  History  of  the  Girondists,  Lamartinc,  vol.  iii.,  p.  201, 


1793.] 


THE  JACOBINS  TRIUMPHANT 


359 


"  The  prisons  were  the  abode  of  every  species  of  suffering.  The  despair 
which  reigned  in  these  sepulchres  was  terrific :  one  finished  his  existence 
bj  poison ;  another  dispatched  himself  by  a  nail ;  another  dashed  his  head 
against  the  walls  of  his  cell ;  some  lost  their  reason.  Those  who  had  suffi- 
cient fortitude  waited  patiently  for  the  executioner.  Every  house  of  arrest 
was  required  to  furnish  a  certain  number  of  victims.     The  turnkeys  went 


ING  THE  UbT  OF  TIIE  VICTIMS  IN  THE  rEI80>S  OF  lAliia. 


360  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXXIV. 

with  these  mandates  of  accusation  from  chamber  to  chamber  in  the  dead  of 
night.  The  prisoners,  starting  from  their  sleep  at  the  voice  of  their  Cerbe- 
ruses,  supposed  their  end  had  arrived.  Thus  warrants  of  death  for  thirty 
threw  hundreds  into  consternation.* 

"  At  first  the  sheriffs  ranged  fifteen  at  a  time  in  their  carts,  then  thirty, 
and  about  the  time  of  the  fall  of  Eobespierre  preparations  had  been  made 
for  the  execution  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  at  a  time.  An  aqueduct  had 
been  contrived  to  carry  off  the  blood.  In  these  batches,  as  they  were  called, 
were  often  imited  people  of  the  most  opposite  systems  and  habits.  Some- 
times whole  generations  were  destroyed  in  a  day.  Malesherbes,  at  the  age 
of  eighty,  perished  with  his  sister,  his  daughter,  his  son-in-law,  his  grand- 
son, and  his  granddaughter.  Forty  young  women  were  brought  to  the 
guillotine  for  having  danced  at  a  ball  given  by  the  King  of  Prussia  at 
Verdun.  Twenty-two  peasant  women,  whose  husbands  had  been  executed 
in  La  Vendee,  were  beheaded." 

Such  was  the  thraldom  from  which,  at  last,  the  empire  of  Napoleon  res- 
cued France.  Nothing  less  than  the  strength  of  his  powerful  arm  could 
have  wrought  out  the  achievement. 

In  the  midst  of  such  scenes  it  is  not  strange  that  all  respect  should  have 
been  renounced  for  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  Jacobins  of  Paris 
crowded  the  Convention,  demanding  the  abjuration  of  all  forms  of  religion 
and  all  modes  of  worship.  They  governed  the  Convention  with  despotic 
sway.  The  Commune  of  Paris,  invested  with  the  local  police  of  the  city, 
passed  laws  prohibiting  the  clergy  from  exercising  religious  worship  outside 
the  churches.  None  but  friends  and  relatives  were  to  be  allowed  to  follow 
the  remains  of  the  dead  to  the  grave.  All  religious  symbols  were  ordered 
to  be  effaced  from  the  cemeteries,  and  to  be  replaced  by  a  statue  of  Sleep. 
The  following  ravings  of  Anacharsis  Cloots,  a  wealthy  Prussian  baron,  who 
styled  himself  the  orator  of  the  human  race,  and  who  was  one  of  the  most 
conspicuous  of  the  Jacobin  agitators,  forcibly  exhibits  the  spirit  of  the  times  if 

"  Paris,  the  metropolis  of  the  globe,  is  the  proper  post  for  the  orator  of 
the  human  race.  I  have  not  left  Paris  since  1789.  It  was  then  that  I  re- 
doubled my  zeal  against  the  pretended  sovereigns  of  earth  and  heaven.  I 
boldly  preached  that  there  is  no  other  god  but  Nature,  no  other  sovereign 
but  the  human  race— the  people-god.  The  people  is  sufficient  for  itself. 
Nature  kneels  not  before  herself  Eeligion  is  the  only  obstacle  to  universal 
happiness.     It  is  high  time  to  destroy  it." 

The  popular  current  in  Paris  now  set  very  strongly  against  all  religion. 
Infidel  and  atheistic  principles  were  loudly  proclaimed.  The  unlettered 
populace,  whoso  faith  was  but  superstition,  were  easily  swept  along  by  the 
current.  The  Convention  made  a  feeble  resistance,  but  soon  yielded  to  the 
general  impulse.  In  the  difrcrcnt  sections  of  Paris,  gatherings  of  the  popu- 
lace abjured  all  religion.     The  fanaticism  spread  like  wild-fire  to  the  distant 

♦  "  There  wore  in  the  prisons  of  Pnris  on  the  Ist  of  Soptomhcr,  179:^,  507  ;  October  1,  2400; 
Noven.l...r  1,  .T.'OU;  Dnrmhcr  1,  4i:j();  and  in  six  months  uftcr,  11,400."— //i5/.  rhil.  de  la  Rev. 
tic  trnnir,  juir  Ant.  J'tiiitiit  Iksudoards. 

t  Cloc.fs  .Icclarca  himself  "  ilu-  personal  enemv  of  Jesus  Christ."  France  adopted  the  athc- 
i»Uc  princijiles  of  ClooU,  uud  sent  him  to  the  guillotine.     See  article  Cloots,  Enc.  Am. 


1793.]  I'ALL  OF  THE  HEBERTISTS  AND  OF  THE  DANTONISTS.  361 

departments.  The  churclies  were  stripped  of  their  baptismal  plate  and 
other  treasures,  and  the  plunder  was  sent  to  the  Convention.  Processions 
paraded  the  streets,  singing,  derisively,  Hallelujahs,  and  profaning  with  sacri- 
legious caricature  all  the  ceremonies  of  religion.  The  sacrament  of  the 
Lord's  Supper  was  administered  to  an  ass. 

The  Convention  had  appointed  a  committee  of  twelve  men,  called  the 
Committee  of  Public  Safety,  and  invested  them  with  dictatorial  power.  The 
whole  revolutionary  power  was  now  lodged  in  their  hands.  They  appoint- 
ed such  sub-committees  as  they  pleased,  and  governed  France  with  terrific 
energy.  The  Eevolutionary  Tribunal  was  but  one  of  their  committees. 
In  all  the  departments  they  estabhshed  their  agencies.  The  Convention 
itself  became  powerless  before  this  appalling  despotism.  This  dictatorship 
was  energetically  supported  by  the  mob  of  Paris ;  and  the  city  government 
of  Paris  was  composed  of  the  most  violent  Jacobins,  who  were  in  perfect 
fraternity  with  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety.  St.  Just,  who  proposed  in 
the  Convention  the  establishment  of  this  dictatorship,  said, 

"  You  must  no  longer  show  any  lenity  to  the  enemies  of  the  new  order 
of  things.  Liberty  must  triumph  at  any  cost.  In  the  present  circumstances 
of  the  Eepublic  the  Constitution  can  not  be  established ;  it  would  guarantee 
impunity  to  attacks  on  our  liberty,  because  it  would  be  deficient  in  the 
violence  necessary  to  restrain  them." 

This  Committee,  overawing  the  Convention,  constrained  the  establishment 
of  a  new  era.  To  obhterate  the  Sabbath,  they  divided  the  year  into  twelve 
months  of  thirty  days  each,  each  month  to  consist  of  three  weeks  of  ten 
days  each.  The  tenth  day  was  devoted  to  festivals.  The  five  surplus  days 
were  placed  at  the  end  of  the  year,  and  were  consecrated  to  games  and  re- 
joicing. Thus  energetically  were  measures  adopted  to  obliterate  entirely 
all  traces  of  the  Sabbath.  There  were  thousands  in  France  who  looked 
upon  these  measures  with  unutterable  disgust,  but  they  were  overwhelmed 
by  the  powers  of  anarchy.  Anxiously  they  waited  for  a  deliverer.  In 
Napoleon  they  found  one,  who  was  alike  the  foe  of  the  despotism  of  the 
Bourbons  and  the  despotism  of  the  mob. 


CHAPTEE  XXXV. 

FALL  OF  THE  HEBERTISTS  AND   OF  THE  DANTONISTS. 

Continued  Persecution  of  the  Girondists. — Robespierre  opposes  the  Atheists. — Danton,  Souber- 
bielle,  and  Caraille  Desmoulins. — The  Vieiix  Cordelier. — The  Hebertists  executed. — Danton 
assailed. — Interview  between  Danton  and  RobesjHcrre. — Danton  warned  of  his  Peril. — Ca- 
naille Desmoulins  and  others  arrested. — Lucile,  the  AVife  of  Desmoulins. — Letters. — Execution 
of  the  Dantonists. — Arrest  and  Execution  of  Lucile. — Toulon  recovered  by  Bonaparte. 

The  leaders  of  the  Girondists  were  now  destroyed,  and  the  remnants  of 
the  party  were  prosecuted  with  unsparing  ferocity.  On  the  11th  of  Novem- 
ber, Bailly,  the  former  mayor,  the  friend  of  La  Fayette,  the  philanthropist 
and  the  scholar,  was  dragged  to  the  scaffold.  The  day  was  cold  and  rainy. 
His  crime  was  having  unfurled  the  red  flag  in  the  Field  of  Mars,  to  quell 


362  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXXV. 

the  riot  there,  on  the  17th  of  July,  1791.  He  was  condemned  to  be  exe- 
cuted on  the  Held  which  was  the  theatre  of  his  alleged  crime.  Behind  the 
cart  which  carried  him  they  affixed  the  flag  which  he  had  spread.  A  crowd 
followed,  heaping  upon  him  the  most  cruel  imprecations.  On  reaching  the 
scaftbld,  some  one  cried  out  that  the  field  of  the  federation  ought  not  to  be 
polluted  with  his  blood.  Immediately  the  mob  rushed  upon  the  guillotine, 
tore  it  down,  and  erected  it  again  upon  a  dunghill  on  the  banks  of  the 
Seine.  They  dragged  Bailly  from  the  tumbril,  and  compelled  him  to  make 
the  tour  of  the  Field  of  Mars  on  foot.  Bareheaded,  with  his  hands  bound 
behind  him,  and  with  no  other  garment  than  a  shirt,  the  sleet  glued  his 
hair  and  froze  upon  his  breast.  They  pelted  him  with  mud,  spat  in  bis 
face,  and  whipped  him  with  the  flag,  which  they  dipped  in  the  gutters. 
The  old  man  fell  exhausted.  They  lifted  him  up  again,  and  goaded  him 
on.  Blood,  mingled  with  mire,  streamed  down  his  face,  depriving  him  of 
human  aspect.  Shouts  of  derision  greeted  these  horrors.  The  freezing 
wind  and  exhaustion  caused  an  involuntary  shivering.  Some  one  cried 
out,  *'  You  tremble,  Bailly."  "  Yes,  my  friend,"  replied  the  heroic  old  man, 
"but  it  is  with  cold."*  After  five  hours  of  such  a  martyrdom,  the  axe  re- 
leased him  from  his  sufferings. 

Petion  and  Buzot  wandered  many  days  and  nights  in  the  forest.  At 
length  their  remains  were  found,  half  devoured  by  wolves.  Whether  they 
perished  of  cold  and  starvation,  or  sought  relief  from  their  misery  in  volun- 
tary death,  is  not  known. 

The  illustrious  Condorcet,  alike  renowned  for  his  philosophical  genius 
and  his  eloquent  advocacy  of  popular  rights,  had  been  declared  an  outlaw. 
For  several  months  he  had  been  concealed  in  the  house  of  Madame  Verney, 
a  noble  woman,  who  periled  her  own  life  that  she  might  save  that  of  her 
friend.  At  last  Condorcet,  learning  from  the  papers  that  death  was  de- 
nounced against  all  who  concealed  a  proscribed  individual,  resolved,  at 
every  hazard,  to  leave  the  roof  of  his  benefactress.  For  some  time  he  wan- 
dered through  the  fields  in  disguise,  until  he  was  arrested  and  thrown  into 
prison.  On  the  following  morning,  March  28,  1794,  he  was  found  dead  on 
the  floor  of  his  room,  having  swallowed  poison,  which  for  some  time  he 
carried  about  wnth  him. 

"It  would  be  difficult  in  that  or  any  other  age  to  find  two  men  of  more 
active  or,  indeed,  enthusiastic  benevolence  than  Condorcet  and  La  Fayette. 
Besides  this,  Condorcet  was  one  of  the  most  profound  thinkers  of  his  time, 
and  will  be  remembered  as  long  as  genius  is  honored  among  us.  La  Fay- 
ette was  no  doubt  inferior  to  Condorcet  in  point  of  ability,  but  he  was  the 
intimate  friend  of  Washington,  on  whose  conduct  he  modeled  his  own,  and 
by  whose  side  he  had  fought  for  the  liberties  of  America;  his  integrity  was, 
and  still  is,  unsullied,  and  his  character  had  a  chivalrous  and  noble  turn 
which  Burke,  in  his  better  days,  would  have  been  the  first  to  admire. 
Both,  however,  were  natives  of  that  hated  country  whoso  liberties  they 

*  "Few  vioiiniH  over  met  with  viler  cxccntionors ;  few  cxocutiuncrs  with  so  oxaltoil  a  victim. 
Slmmc  at  tli.-  f.-.t-of  tlic  Kciillold,  (.lory  iihovp,  ami  ])ity  every  where.  One  bhishe.s  to  be  ft  man 
in  conteinphitinj;  ihJH  i.<-<)j,le.  One  glories  iu  this  titic  in  contcmplftting  Bailly. "—Lamartine, 
Bin.  air.,  vol.  iji.,  p.  :i83. 


1793.]         FALL  OF  THE  HEBERTISTS  AND  OF  THE  DANTONISTS.  363 


DK<iTU   OF  CO>'DOBCET. 


vainly  attempted  to  achieve.  On  this  account  Burke  declared  Condorcet 
to  be  guilty  of  'impious  sophistry,'  to  be  a  'fanatic  atheist  and  furious  dem- 
ocratic republican,'  and  to  be  capable  of  the  '  lowest  as  well  as  the  highest 
and  most  determined  villainies.'  As  to  La  Fayette,  when  an  attempt  was 
made  to  mitigate  the  cruel  treatment  he  was  receiving  from  the  Prussian 
government,  Burke  not  only  opposed  the  motion  made  for  that  purpose  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  but  took  the  opportunity  of  grossly  insulting  the 
unfortunate  captive,  who  was  then  languishing  in  a  dungeon.  So  dead  had 
he  become  on  this  subject,  even  to  the  common  instincts  of  our  nature,  that 
in  his  place  in  parliament  he  could  find  no  better  way  of  speaking  of  this 
injured  and  high-souled  man  than  by  calling  him  a  ruffian.  '  I  would  not,' 
says  Burke,  '  debase'^  my  humanity  by  supporting  an  application  in  behalf 
of  so  horrid  a  ruffian.'  "f 

Madame  Eoland  was  led  to  the  guillotine,  evincing  heroism  which  the 
world  has  never  seen  surpassed.  Her  husband,  in  anguish,  unable  to  sur- 
vive her,  and  hunted  by  those  thirsting  for  his  blood,  anticipated  the  guillo- 
tine by  plunging  a  stiletto  into  his  own  heart. 

Danton  and  Eobespierre  were  both  opposed  to  such  cruel  executions,  and 
especially  to  the  establishment  in  France  of  that  system  of  atheism  which 
degraded  man  into  merely  the  reptile  of  an  hour.  When  Eobespierre  was 
informed  of  the  atrocities  which  attended  the  execution  of  Bailly,  in  shame 

*  In  Pari.  Hist.,  "I  would  not  debauch  my  humanity." 

t  History  of  Civilization  in  England,  by  Henry  Thomas  Buckle,  vol.  i.,  p.  338. 


364  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXXV. 

and  grief  he  shut  himself  up  in  his  room,  saying,  with  prophetic  foresight, 
to  his  host  Duplay,  ■"  It  is  thus  that  they  will  martyrize  ourselves." 

Hebert*  and  the  atheists  were  now  dominant  in  the  Commune  of  Paris, 
and  Dan  ton  and  liobespierre  organized  a  party  to  crush  them.  Ilebert  soon 
saw  indications  of  this  movement,  and  began  to  tremble.  He  complained 
in  the  Jacobin  Club  that  Kobespierre  and  Danton  were  plotting  against  him. 
Robespierre  was  present  on  the  occasion,  and,  with  his  accustomed  audacity, 
immediately  ascended  the  tribune  and  hurled  his  anathemas  uj)on  the  heads 
of  these  blood-crimsoned  fanatics. 

"  There  are  men,"  said  he,  "  who,  under  the  pretext  of  destroying  supersti- 
tion, would  fain  make  a  sort  of  religion  of  atheism  itself.  Every  man  has  a 
right  to  think  as  he  pleases ;  whoever  would  make  a  crime  of  this  is  a  mad- 
man. But  the  legislator  who  should  adopt  the  system  of  atheism  would  be 
a  hundred  times  more  insane.  The  National  Convention  abhors  such  a 
system.  It  is  a  political  body,  not  a  maker  of  creeds.  Atheism  is  aristocratic. 
The  idea  of  a  great  Being  who  watches  over  oppressed  innocence  and  who 
punishes  triumphant  guilt  is  quite  popular.  The  people,  the  unfortunate, 
applaud  me.     If  God  did  not  exist,  it  tvould  behoove  man  to  invent  him." 

One  of  the  last  evenings  in  the  month  of  January,  Danton,  Souberbielle, 
one  of  the  members  of  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal,  and  Camille  Desmoulins 
came  from  the  Palace  of  Justice  together.  It  was  a  cold  gloomy  winter's 
night.  It  had  been  a  day  of  blood.  Fifteen  heads  had  fallen  upon  the 
guillotine  and  twenty-seven  were  condemned  to  die  on  the  morrow.  These 
three  men  were  all  appalled  by  the  progress  of  events,  and  for  some  time 
walked  along  in  silence.  On  reaching  Pont  Neuf,  Danton  turned  suddenly 
round  to  Souberbielle  and  said, 

"  Do  you  know  that,  at  the  pace  we  are  now  going,  there  will  speedily  be 
no  safety  for  any  person  ?  The  best  patriots  are  confounded  with  traitors. 
Generals  who  have  shed  their  blood  for  the  Republic  perish  on  the  scaftbld. 
I  am  weary  of  living.  Look  there ;  the  very  river  seems  to  flow  with 
blood." 

"  True,"  replied  Souberbielle,  "  the  sky  is  red,  and  there  arc  many  show- 
ers of  blood  behind  those  clouds.  Those  who  were  to  be  judges  liave  be- 
come but  executioners.  When  I  refuse  an  innocent  head  to  their  knife  I 
am  accused  of  sympathy  with  traitors.  "What  can  I  do  ?  I  am  but  an  ob- 
scure patriot.     Ah,  if  I  were  Danton !" 

"  All  this,"  replied  Danton,  "  excites  horror  in  me.  But  be  silent.  Dan- 
ton sleeps ;  he  will  awake  at  the  right  moment.  I  am  a  man  of  revolution, 
but  not  a  man  of  slaughter.  But  you,"  he  added,  addressing  Camille  Des- 
moulins, "why  do  you  keep  silence?" 

*  Hcljort  vrnn  a  low  fellow,  imjmdcnt,  ipnornnt,  nnd  corrnpt,  nml  connected  with  one  of  the 
theatres  in  Paris.  He  was  an  ardent  Jacobin,  and  established  n  paper  called  "Father  Dh- 
chesne,"  which,  from  its  rilialdry,  was  eaperly  s.)u;:ht  for  bv  the  i)opulaee.  He  was  one  of  the 
leaders  of  the  prison  massacres  on  the  lOth  of  Anpist.  His  imper  was  the  zealous  advocate  of 
atheism.  Hi.  it  wiw  who  brouKht  the  disRustinj;  charge  apainst  the  fpieen  that  she  had  endeav- 
ored to  iK>llutc  her  own  son,  and  had  committed  incest  with  him,  a  child  of  eipht  vears.  Robes- 
pierre even  was  indipi\ant  at  the  foul  accusation,  and  exclaimed,  "  Madman  !  was  it  not  enough 
for  him  to  have  asserted  that  slic  was  u  Messalina,  without  also  making  an  Aprippina  of  her?"— 
Btmjriiiihic  Mixkmc. 


1794.]        FALL  OF  THE  HEBERTISTS  AND  OF  THE  DANTONISTS.  365 

"  I  am  weary  of  silence,"  was  Desmoulins's  reply.  "  My  hand  weighs 
heavily,  and  I  have  sometimes  the  impulse  to  sharpen  my  pen  into  a  dagger 
and  stab  these  scoundrels.  Let  them  beware.  My  ink  is  more  indelible 
than  their  blood.     It  stains  for  immortahty." 

"  Bravo  I"  cried  Danton.  "  Begin  to-morrow.  You  began  the  Eevolution ; 
be  it  you  who  shall  now  most  thoroughly  urge  it.  Be  assured  this  hand 
shall  aid  you.     You  know  whether  or  not  it  be  strong." 

The  three  friends  separated  at  Danton's  door.  The  doom  of  the  misera- 
ble Hebert  and  his  party  was  now  sealed.  Eobespierre,  Danton,  and  Camille 
Desmoulins  were  against  him.  They  could  wield  resistless  influences.  The 
next  day  Camille  Desmoulins  commenced  a  series  of  papers  called  the  Vieux 
Cordelier.  He  took  the  iirst  number  to  Danton  and  then  to  Eobespierre. 
They  both  approved,  and  the  warfare  against  Hebert  and  his  party  was  com- 
menced. The  conflict  was  short  and  desperate ;  each  party  knew  that  the 
guillotine  was  the  doom  of  the  vanquished.^"  Eobespierre  and  Danton  were 
victors.  Hebert,  Cloots,  and  their  friends,  nineteen  in  number,  were  arrest- 
ed and  condemned  to  death.  On  the  24th  of  March,  1794,  five  carts  laden 
with  the  Hebertists  proceeded  from  the  Conciergerie  to  the  guillotine. 
Cloots  died  firmly.  Hebert  was  in  a  paroxysm  of  terror,  which  excited  the 
contempt  and  derision  of  the  mob. 

The  bold  invectives  against  the  Eeign  of  Terror  in  the  Vieiix  Cordelie^-j 
written  by  Desmoulins,  began  to  alarm  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety. 
Danton  and  Eobespierre  were  implicated.  They  were  accused  of  favoring 
moderate  measures,  and  of  being  opposed  to  those  acts  of  bloody  rigor  which 
were  deemed  necessary  to  crush  the  aristocrats.  Danton  and  Desmoulins 
were  in  favor  of  a  return  to  mercy.  Eobespierre,  though  opposed  to  cruelty 
and  to  needless  carnage,  was  sternly  for  death  as  the  doom  of  every  one  not 
warmly  co-operating  with  the  Eevolution.  To  save  himself  from  suspicion 
he  became  the  accuser  of  his  two  friends.  And  now  it  came  the  turn  of 
Danton  and  Desmoulins  to  tremble.  For  five  years  Danton  and  Eobespierre 
had  fought  together  to  overthrow  royalty  and  found  the  Eepublic.  But 
Danton  was  disgusted  with  carnage,  and  had  withdrawn  from  the  Committee 
of  Public  Safety. 

"  Danton,  do  you  know,"  said  Eglantine  to  him  one  day,  "  of  what  you  are 
accused?  They  say  that  you  have  only  launched  the  car  of  the  Eevolution 
to  enrich  yourself,  while  Eobespierre  has  remained  poor  in  the  midst  of  the 
monarchical  treasures  thrown  at  his  feet." 

*  In  this  celebrated  pamphlet,  the  "Old  Cordelier."  Desmoulins  thus  powerfully  describes 
France,  while  pretending  to  describe  Rome  under  the  emperors  :  "  Every  thing,  under  that  ter- 
rible government,  was  made  the  groundwork  of  suspicion.  Does  a  citizen  avoid  society  and  live 
retired  by  his  fireside ?  That  is  to  n;minate  in  private  on  sinister  designs.  Is  he  rich?  That 
renders  the  danger  greater  that  he  will  coiTupt  the  citizens  by  his  largesses.  Is  he  poor?  None 
so  dangerous  as  those  who  have  nothing  to  lose.  Is  he  thoughtful  and  melancholy  ?  He  is  re- 
volving what  he  calls  the  calamities  of  his  countiy.  Is  he  gay  and  dissipated  ?  He  is  conceal- 
ing, like  Ca3sar,  ambition  under  the  mask  of  pleasure.  The  natural  death  of  a  celebrated  man 
has  become  so  rare  that  historians  transmit  it,  as  a  matter  worthy  of  record,  to  future  ages.  The 
tribunals,  once  the  protectors  of  life  and  property,  have  become  the  mere  organs  of  butchery." 

Speaking  of  Hebert,  he  said,  "Hebert,  the  head  of  this  turbulent  and  atrocious  faction,  is  a 
miserable  intriguer,  a  caterer  for  the  guillotine,  a  traitor  paid  by  Pitt,  a  thief  expelled  for  theft 
from  his  office  of  check-taker  at  a  theatre." — Le  Vienx  Cordelier. 


366  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXXV. 

"Well,"  replied  Danton,  "do  you  know  what  that  proves?  that  I  love 
gold,  and  that  Kobcspierre  loves  blood.  Kobespierre  is  afraid  of  money  lest 
it  should  stain  his  hands." 

Eobespicrre  earnestly  wished  to  associate  Danton  with  him  in  all  the  rigor 
of  the  Eevolutionary  government,  for  he  respected  the  power  of  this  bold, 
indomitable  man.  They  met  at  a  dinner-party,  through  the  agency  of  a  mu- 
tual friend,  when  matters  were  brought  to  a  crisis.  They  engaged  in  a  dis- 
pute, Danton  denouncing  and  reviling  the  acts  of  the  Revolutionary  Tribu- 
nal, and  Robespierre  defending  them,  until  they  separated  in  anger.  The 
friends  of  Danton  urged  him  either  to  escape  by  flight  or  to  take  advantage 
of  his  popularity  and  throw  himself  upon  the  army. 

"  My  life  is  not  worth  the  trouble,"  said  Danton.  "  Besides,  I  am  weary 
of  blood.  I  had  rather  be  guillotined  than  be  a  guillotiner.  They  dare  not 
attack  me.     I  am  stronger  than  they." 

A  secret  meeting  of  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety  was  convened  by 
night,  and  Danton  was  accused  of  the  "treason  of  clemency."  A  subaltern 
door-keeper  heard  the  accusation,  and  ran  to  Danton's  house  to  warn  him  of 
his  peril  and  to  offer  him  an  asylum.  The  young  and  beautiful  wife  of  Dan- 
ton, with  tears  in  her  eyes,  threw  herself  at  his  feet,  and  implored  him,  for 
her  sake  and  for  that  of  their  children,  to  accept  the  proffered  shelter.  Dan- 
ton proudly  refused,  saying, 

"  They  will  deliberate  long  before  they  will  dare  to  strike  a  man  like  me. 
While  they  deliberate  I  will  surprise  them." 

He  dismissed  the  door-keeper  and  retired  to  bed.  At  six  o'clock  gens 
cCarmes  entered  his  room  with  the  order  for  his  arrest. 

"  They  dare,  then,"  said  Danton,  crushing  the  paper  in  his  hand.  "  They 
are  bolder  than  I  had  thought  them  to  be." 

He  dressed,  embraced  his  wife  convulsively,  and  was  conducted  to  prison. 
At  the  same  hour  Camille  Desmoulins  and  fourteen  others,  the  supposed  par- 
tisans of  Danton,  were  also  arrested.  It  was  the  31st  of  March.  Danton  was 
taken  to  the  Luxembourg.  Here  he  found  Desmoulins  and  his  other  friends 
already  incarcerated.  As  Danton  entered  the  gloomy  portals  of  the  prison 
he  said, 

"  At  length  I  perceive  that,  in  revolutions,  the  supreme  power  ultimately 
rests  with  the  most  abandoned."* 

A  crowd  of  the  detained  immediately  gathered  around  him,  amazed  at  that 
freak  of  fortune  which  had  cast  the  most  distinguished  leader  of  the  Jaco- 
bins into  the  dungeons  of  the  accused.  Danton  was  humiliated  and  annoy etl 
by  the  gaze,  and  endeavored  to  veil  his  embarrassment  under  the  guise^  of 
derision. 

"  Yes,"  said  he,  raising  his  head  and  forcing  loud  laut^htcr,  "  it  is  Danton. 
Look  at  him  well.  The  trick  is  well  played.  We  must  know  how  to  jiraisc 
our  enemies  when  they  conduct  adroitly.  I  would  never  have  believed  that 
Robespierre  could  have  juggled  mc  thus."  Then  softening,  and  growing 
more  smcere,  he  said,  "  Gentlemen,  I  hoped  to  have  been  the  means  of  deliv- 
ering you  all  from  this  place;  but  here  I  am  among  you,  and  no  one  can 
tell  where  this  will  end.''  ^ 

*  Kiouflo,  J..  G7. 


1794.]        FALL  OF  THE  HEBERTISTS  AND  OF  THE  DANTONISTS.  367 

The  accused  Dantonists — accused  of  advocating  moderate  measures  in  tlie 
treatment  of  the  enemies  of  the  Eevolution — were  soon  shut  up  in  separate 
cells.  The  report  of  the  arrest  of  men  of  such  acknowledged  power,  and 
who  had  been  so  popular  as  patriots,  spread  anxiety  and  gloom  through 
Paris.  The  warmest  friends  of  the  arrested  dared  not  plead  their  cause ;  it 
would  only  have  imperiled  their  own  lives. 

Even  in  the  Assembly  great  excitement  was  produced  by  these  important 
arrests.  The  members  gathered  in  groups  and  spoke  to  each  other  in  whis- 
pers, inquiring  what  all  this  meant  and  where  it  was  to  end.  At  last,  Ld- 
gendre  ventured  to  ascend  the  tribune,  and  said, 

"  Citizens,  four  members  of  this  Assembly  have  been  an-ested  during  the 
night.  Danton  is  one.  I  know  not  the  others.  Citizens,  I  declare  that  I 
believe  Danton  to-be  as  pure  as  myself;  yet  he  is  in  a  dungeon.  They  fear- 
ed, no  doubt,  that  his  replies  would  overturn  the  accusations  brought  against 
him.  I  move,  therefore,  that,  before  you  listen  to  any  report,  you  send  for 
the  prisoners  and  hear  them." 

Eobespierre  immediately  ascended  the  tribune  and  replied, 

"  By  the  unusual  agitation  which  pervades  this  Assembly — by  the  sensa- 
tion the  words  of  the  speaker  you  have  just  heard  have  produced,  it  is  man- 
ifest that  a  question  of  great  interest  is  before  us — a  question  whether  two 
or  three  individuals  shall  be  preferred  to  the  country.  The  question  to-day 
is  whether  the  interests  of  certain  ambitious  hypocrites  shall  prevail  over 
the  interests  of  the  French  nation.  Legendre  appears  not  to  know  the  names 
of  those  who  have  been  arrested.  All  the  Convention  knows  them.  His 
friend  Lacrois  is  among  the  prisoners.  "Why  does  he  pretend  to  be  ignorant 
of  it?  Because  he  knows  that  he  can  not  defend  Lacroix  without  shame. 
He  has  spoken  of  Danton,  doubtless  because  he  thinks  that  a  privilege  is  at- 
tached to  this  name.  Not  we  will  have  no  privilege.  No!  we  will  have 
no  idols.  We  shall  see  to-day  whether  the  Convention  will  break  a  false 
idol,  long  since  decayed,  or  whether  in  its  fall  it  will  crush  the  Convention 
and  the  French  people. 

"  I  say,  whoever  now  trembles  is  guilty,  for  never  does  innocence  dread 
public  surveillance.  Me,  too,  have  they  tried  to  alarm.  It  has  been  at- 
tempted to  make  me  believe  that  the  danger  which  threatens  Danton  might 
reach  me.  I  have  been  written  to.  The  friends  of  Danton  have  sent  me 
their  letters ;  have  besieged  me  with  their  importunities.  They  have  thought 
that  the  remembrance  of  a  former  acquaintance,  that  a  past  belief  in  false 
virtues,  might  determine  me  to  relax  in  my  zeal  and  my  passion  for  liberty. 
Well,  then,  I  declare  that  none  of  these  motives  have  touched  my  soul  with 
the  slightest  impression ;  my  life  is  for  my  country,  my  heart  is  exempt 
from  fear. 

"  I  have  seen  in  the  flattery  which  has  been  addressed  to  me,  in  the  con- 
cern of  those  who  surrounded  Danton,  onl}^  signs  of  the  terror  which  they 
felt,  even  before  they  were  threatened.  And  I,  too,  have  been  the  friend  of 
Petion  ;  as  soon  as  he  was  unmasked  I  abandoned  him.  I  have  also  been 
acquainted  with  Roland ;  he  became  a  traitor  and  I  denounced  him.  Dan- 
ton would  take  their  place,  and  in  my  eyes  he  is  but  an  enemy  to  his  coun- 
try." 


368  THE  FKENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXXV. 

Legendre,  appalled,  immediately  retracted,  and  trembling  for  his  life,  like  a 
whipped  spaniel,  crouched  before  the  terrible  dictator.  At  that  moment  St. 
Just  came  in,  and  read  a  long  report  against  the  members  under  arrest. 
The  substance  of  the  vague  and  rambling  charges  was  that  they  had  been 
boiight  up  by  the  aristocrats  and  were  enemies  to  their  country.  The  As- 
sembly listened  without  a  murmur,  and  then  unanimously,  and  even  with 
applause,  voted  the  impeachment  of  Danton  and  his  friends.  "  Every  one 
sought  to  gain  time  with  tyranny,  and  gave  up  others'  heads  to  save  his 
own.''* 

The  Dantonists  were  men  of  mark,  and  they  now  drank  deeply  of  that 
bitter  chalice  which  they  had  presented  to  so  many  lips.  Camille  Desmou- 
lins,  young,  brilliant,  enthusiastic,  was  one  of  the  most  fascinating  of  men. 
His  youthful  and  beautiful  wife,  Lucile,  he  loved  to  adoration.  They  had 
one  infant  child,  Horace,  their  pride  and  joy.  Camille  was  asleep  in  the 
arms  of  his  wife  when  the  noise  of  the  butt  end  of  a  musket  on  the  threshold 
of  his  door  aroused  him.  As  the  soldiers  presented  the  order  for  his  arrest, 
he  exclaimed,  in  anguish,  "  This,  then,  is  the  recompense  of  the  first  voice 
of  the  Revolution." 

Embracing  his  wife  for  the  last  time,  and  imprinting  a  kiss  upon  the 
cheek  of  his  child  asleep  in  the  cradle,  he  was  hurried  to  prison.  Lucile, 
frantic  with  grief,  ran  through  the  streets  of  Paris  to  plead  with  Robespierre 
and  others  for  her  husband ;  but  her  lamentations  were  as  unavailing  as  the 
moaning  wind.     In  the  following  tender  strain  Camille  wrote  his  wife : 

"  My  prison  recalls  to  my  mind  the  garden  where  I  spent  eight  years  in 
l)eholding  you.  A  glimpse  of  the  garden  of  the  Luxembourg  brings  back 
to  me  a  crowd  of  remembrances  of  our  loves.  I  am  alone,  but  never  have 
I  been  in  thought,  imagination,  feeling  nearer  to  you,  your  mother,  and  to 
my  little  Ilorace.  I  am  going  to  pass  all  my  time  in  prison  in  writing  to 
you,  I  cast  myself  at  your  knees ;  I  stretch  out  my  arms  to  embrace  you ; 
I  find  you  no  more.  Send  me  the  glass  on  which  are  our  two  names ;  a 
book,  which  I  bought  some  days  ago,  on  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  I 
have  need  of  persuading  myself  that  there  is  a  God  more  just  than  man,  and 
that  I  can  not  fail  to  see  you  again.  Do  not  grieve  too  much  over  my 
thoughts,  dearest ;  I  do  not  yet  despair  of  men.  Yes !  my  beloved,  we  will 
see  ourselves  again  in  the  garden  of  the  Luxembourg.  Adieu,  Lucile! 
Adieu,  Ilorace  1  I  can  not  embrace  you ;  but  in  the  tears  which  I  shed  it  ap- 
pears that  I  press  you  again  to  my  bosom.  Thy  Camille." 

Lucile,  frantic  with  grief,  made  the  most  dcspcr^ite  efforts  to  gain  access 
to  Robespierre,  but  she  was  sternly  repulsed.  She  then  thus  imploringly 
wrote  to  him, 

"  Can  you  accuse  us  of  treason,  you  who  have  profited  so  much  by  the  ef- 
forts wo  have  made  for  our  country?     Camille  has  seen  the  birth  of  your 
pride,  the  i)ath  you  desired  to  tread,  but  he  hiLS  recalled  your  ancient  friend- 
ship and  shrunk  from  the  idea  of  accusing  a  friend,  a  companion  of  his  la- 
*  Mignot,  p.  245. 


1794.]        FALL  OF  THE  HEBERTISTS  AND  OF  THE  DANTONISTS.  369 

bors.  That  hand  which  has  pressed  yours  has  too  soon  abandoned  the  pen, 
since  it  could  no  longer  trace  your  praise ;  and  you,  you  send  him  to  death. 
But,  Kobespierre,  will  you  really  accomplish  the  deadly  projects  which  doubt- 
less the  vile  souls  which  surround  you  have  inspired  you  with  ?  Have  you 
forgotten  those  bonds  which  Camille  never  recalls  without  grief?  you  who 
prayed  for  our  union,  who  joined  our  hands  in  yours,  who  have  smiled  upon 
my  son  whose  infantile  hands  have  so  often  caressed  you  ?  Can  you,  then, 
reject  my  prayers,  despise  my  tears,  and  trample  justice  under  foot?  For 
you  know  it  yourself,  we  do  not  merit  the  fate  they  are  preparing  for  us, 
and  you  can  avert  it.  If  it  strike  us,  it  is  you  who  will  have  ordered  it. 
But  what  is,  then,  the  crime  of  my  Camille  ? 

"  I  have  not  his  pen  to  defend  him.  But  the  voice  of  good  citizens,  and 
your  heart,  if  it  is  sensible,  will  plead  for  me.  Do  you  believe  that  people 
will  gain  confidence  in  you  by  seeing  you  immolate  your  best  friends  ?  Do 
you  think  that  they  will  bless  him  who  regards  neither  the  tears  of  the 
widow  nor  the  death  of  the  orphan  ?  Poor  Camille !  in  the  simplicity  of  his 
heart,  how  far  was  he  from  suspecting  the  fate  which  awaits  him  to-day ! 
He  thought  to  labor  for  your  glory  in  pointing  out  to  you  what  was  still 
wanting  to  our  republic.  He  has,  no  doubt,  been  calumniated  to  you,  Eobes- 
pierre,  for  you  can  not  believe  him  guilty.  Consider  that  he  has  never  re- 
quired the  death  of  any  one — that  he  has  never  desired  to  injure  by  your 
power,  and  that  you  were  his  oldest  and  his  best  friend.  And  you  are  about 
to  kill  us  both !     For  to  strike  him  is  to  kill  me — " 

The  unfinished  letter  she  intrusted  to  her  mother,  but  it  never  reached 
the  hands  of  Kobespierre.  The  prisoners  were  soon  taken  to  the  Concier- 
gerie  and  plunged  into  the  same  dungeon  into  which  they  had  thrown  the 
Grirondists.  The  day  of  trial  was  appointed  without  delay.  It  was  the  3d 
of  April.  As  the  prisoners,  fourteen  in  number,  were  arrayed  before  the 
Tribunal,  the  president,  Hermann,  inquired  of  Danton,  in  formal  phrase,  his 
name,  age,  and  residence. 

"  My  name,"  was  the  proud  and  defiant  reply,  "  is  Danton,  well  enough 
known  in  the  Eevolution.  I  am  thirty-five  years  old.  My  residence  will 
soon  be  void,  and  my  name  will  exist  in  the  Pantheon  of  history." 

To  the  same  question  Camille  Desmoulins  replied,  "  I  am  thirty-three,  a 
fatal  age  to  revolutionists, — the  age  of  the  sans  culotte  Jesus  when  he  died." 

The  trial  lasted  three  days.  Danton,  in  his  defense,  struggled  like  a  Hon 
in  the  toils.  An  immense  crowd  filled  the  court  and  crowded  the  surround- 
ing streets.  The  windows  were  open,  and  the  thunders  of  his  voice  were 
frequently  heard  even  to  the  other  side  of  the  Seine.  The  people  in  the 
streets,  whom  he  doubtless  meant  to  influence,  caught  up  his  words  and 
transmitted  them  from  one  to  another.  Some  indications  of  popular  sym- 
pathy alarmed  the  Tribunal,  and  it  was  voted  that  the  accused  were  wanting 
in  respect  to  the  court,  and  should  no  longer  be  heard  in  their  defense. 
They  were  immediately  condemned  to  die. 

They  were  reconducted  to  their  dungeon  to  prepare  for  the  guillotine. 
The  fortitude  of  Camille  Desmoulins  was  weakened  by  the  strength  of  his 
domestic  attachments.     "  Oh,  my  dear  Lucile !  Oh,  my  Horace  !  what  will 

Aa 


370 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXXV. 


PANTON'H  IIETKNBE. 


become  of  thorn  1"  he  incessantly  cried,  wbile  tears  flooded  his  eyes.  Seiz- 
ing a  pen,  he  hastily  wrote  a  few  last  words  to  Lucile,  which  remain  one  of 
the  most  touching  memorials  of  grief. 

"I  have  dreamed,"  he  wrote,  "of  a  republic  which  all  the  world  would 
have  adored.  I  could  not  have  believed  that  men  were  so  cruel  and  unjust. 
r  do  not  dissimulate  that  I  die  a  victim  to  my  friendship  for  Danton.     I 


1794.]         FALL  OF  THE  HEBERTISTS  AND  OF  THE  DANTONISTS.  371 

thank  my  assassins  for  allowing  me  to  die  with  Philippeaux.  Pardon,  my 
dear  friend,  my  true  life  which  I  lost  from  the  moment  they  separated  us. 
I  occupy  myself  with  my  memory.  I  ought  much  rather  to  cause  you  to 
forget  it,  my  Lucile.  I  conjure  you  do  not  call  to  me  by  your  cries.  They 
would  rend  my  heart  in  the  depths  of  the  tomb.  Live  for  our  child ;  talk 
to  him  of  me ;  you  may  tell  him  what  he  can  not  understand,  that  I  should 
have  loved  him  much.  Despite  my  execution,  I  believe  there  is  a  God. 
My  blood  will  wash  out  my  sins,  the  weakness  of  my  humanity ;  and  what- 
ever I  have  possessed  of  good,  my  virtues  and  my  love  of  liberty,  God  will 
recompense  it.     I  shall  see  you  again  one  day. 

"  0  my  Lucile,  sensitive  as  I  was,  the  death  which  delivers  me  from  the 
sight  of  so  much  crime,  is  it  so  great  a  misfortune  ?  Adieu,  my  life,  my 
soul,  my  divinity  upon  earth !  Adieu,  Lucile !  my  Lucile !  my  dear  Lucile  I 
Adieu,  Horace !  Annette !  Ad^le !  Adieu,  my  father !  I  feel  the  shore  of 
life  fly  before  me.  I  still  see  Lucile!  I  see  her,  my  best  beloved!  my 
Lucile  I  My  bound  hands  embrace  you,  and  my  severed  head  rests  still 
upon  you  its  dying  eyes." 

As  Danton  re-entered  the  gloomy  corridor  of  the  prison  he  said,  "  It  was 
just  a  year  ago  that  I  was  instrumental  in  instituting  the  Eevolutionary 
Tribunal.  I  beg  pardon  of  God  and  men.  I  intended  it  as  a  measure  of 
humanity,  to  prevent  the  renewal  of  the  September  massacres,  and  that  no 
man  should  suffer  without  trial.  I  did  not  mean  that  it  should  prove  the 
scourge  of  humanity." 

Then,  pressing  his  capacious  brow  between  his  hands,  he  said,  "  They 
think  that  they  can  do  without  me.  They  deceive  themselves.  I  was  the 
statesman  of  Europe.    They  do  not  suspect  the  void  which  this  head  leaves.'' 

"As  to  me,"  he  continued,  in  cynical  terms,  "I  have  enjoyed  my  mo- 
ments of  existence  well.  I  have  made  plenty  of  noise  upon  earth.  I  have 
tasted  well  of  life.  Let  us  go  to  sleep,"  and  he  made  a  gesture  with  head 
and  arms  as  if  about  to  repose  his  head  upon  a  |)illow. 

After  a  short  pause  he  resumed,  "We  are  sacrificed  to  the  ambition  of  a 
few  dastardly  brigands.  But  they  will  not  long  enjoy  the  fruit  of  their  vil- 
lainy.   I  drag  Eobespierre  after  me.    Eobespierre  follows  me  to  the  grave." 

At  four  o'clock  the  executioners  entered  the  Conciergerie  to  bind  their 
hands  and  cut  off  their  hair. 

"It  will  be  very  amusing,"  said  Danton,  "to  the  fools  who  will  gape  at 
us  in  the  streets,  but  we  shall  appear  otherwise  in  the  eyes  of  posterity." 

"When  the  executioners  laid  hold  of  Camille  Desmoulins,  he  struggled  in 
the  most  desperate  resistance.  But  he  was  speedily  thrown  upon  the  floor 
and  bound,  while  the  prison  resounded  with  his  shrieks  and  imprecations. 
The  whole  fourteen  Dantonists  were  placed  in  one  cart.  Desmoulins  seemed 
frantic  with  terror.  He  looked  imploringly  upon  the  crowd,  and  incessantly 
cried, 

"  Save  me,  generous  people  !  I  am  Camille  Desmoulins.  It  was  I  who 
called  you  to  arms  on  the  l-ith  of  July.  It  was  I  who  gave  you  the  nation- 
al cockade." 

He  so  writhed  and  twisted  in  the  convnlsions  of  his  agony  that  his  clothes 
were  nearly  torn  from  his  back.  Danton  stood  in  moody  silence,  occasion- 
ally endeavoring  to  appease  the  turbulence  of  Desmoulins. 


372  THE  FliENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXXV. 

nerault  de  Sechelles  first  ascended  the  scaffold.  As  lie  alighted  from 
the  curt  he  endeavored  to  embrace  Danton.  The  brutal  executioner  inter- 
posed. 

"Wretch,"  said  Danton,  "you  will  not,  at  least,  prevent  our  heads  from 
kissing  presently  in  the  basket." 

Desmoulins  followed  next.  In  his  hand  he  held  a  lock  of  his  wife's  hair. 
For  an  instant  he  gazed  upon  the  blade,  streaming  with  the  blood  of  his 
friend,  and  then  said,  turning  to  the  populace, 

"  Look  at  the  end  of  the  first  apostle  of  hberty.  The  monsters  who  mur- 
der me  will  not  survive  me  long." 

The  axe  fell,  and  his  head  dropped  into  the  basket.  Danton  looked 
proudly,  imperturbably  on  as,  one  after  another,  the  heads  of  his  thirteen 
companions  fell.  He  was  the  last  to  ascend  the  scaffold.  For  a  moment 
he  was  softened  as  he  thought  of  his  wife. 

"Oh  my  wife,  my  dear  wife,"  said  he,  "shall  I  never  see  you  again?" 
Then  checking  himself,  he  said,  "  But,  Danton,  no  weakness."  Turning  to 
the  executioner,  he  proudly  remarked,  "You  will  show  my  head  to  the 
people ;  it  will  be  well  worth  the  display." 

Ilis  head  fell.  The  executioner,  seizing  it  by  the  hair,  walked  around 
the  platform,  holding  it  up  to  the  gaze  of  the  populace.  A  shout  of  ap- 
plause rose  from  the  infatuated  people.  "  Thus,"  says  Mignet,  "  perished 
the  last  defenders  of  humanity  and  moderation,  the  last  who  sought  to  pro- 
mote peace  among  the  conquerors  of  the  Eevolution  and  pity  for  the  con- 
quered. For  a  long  time  after  them  no  voice  was  raised  against  the  dicta- 
torship of  terror,  and  from  one  end  of  France  to  the  other  it  struck  silent 
and  redoubled  blows.  The  Girondists  had  sought  to  prevent  this  violent 
reign,  the  Dantonists  to  stop  it.  All  perished,  and  the  conquerors  had  the 
more  victims  to  strike,  the  more  the  foes  arose  around  them." 

The  Robespierrians,  having  thus  struck  down  the  leaders  of  the  moderate 
party,  pursued  their  victory,  by  crushing  all  of  the  advocates  of  moderation 
from  whom  they  apprehended  the  slightest  danger.  Day  after  day  the 
guillotine  ran  red  with  blood.  Even  the  devoted  wife  of  Camille  Desmou- 
lins, but  twenty-three  years  of  age,  was  not  spared.  It  was  her  crime  that 
she  loved  her  husband,  and  that  she  might  excite  sympathy  for  his  fate. 
Resplendent  with  grace  and  beauty,  she  was  dragged  before  the  Revolution- 
ary Tribunal.  Little  Ilorace  was  left  an  orphan,  to  cry  in  his  cradle.  Lu- 
cile  displayed  heroism  upon  the  scaffold  unsurpassed  by  that  of  Charlotte 
Corday  or  Madame  Roland.  When  condemned  to  death  she  said  calmly  to 
her  judges, 

"I  shall,  then,  in  a  few  hours,  again  meet  my  husband.  In  departing 
from  this  world,  in  which  notliing  now  remains  to  engage  my  affections,  I 
am  far  less  the  object  of  pity  than  arc  you." 

liobespicrre  had  l)ccn  the  intimate  friend  of  Desmoulins  and  Lucile.  He 
had  often  cat  of  their  bread  and  drunk  of  their  cup  in  social  converse.  He 
was  a  guest  at  their  wedding.  Madame  Dujilessis,  the  mother  of  Lucile, 
was  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  accom])lishe(l  women  of  France.  In  vain 
slie  ad<lressed  liersdf  to  Robesj.ierre  and  all  his  friends,  in  almost  frantic 
endeavors  to  save  her  daughter. 


1794.]         I'ALL  OF  THE  HEBERTISTS  AND  OF  THE  DANTONISTS. 


ES'TEBIOR  OP  THE  EEVOLUTIONAKY   TELBUNAL. 


"  Eobespierre,"  she  wrote  to  liim,  "  is  it  not  enough  to  have  assassinated 
jour  best  friend ;  do  you  desire  also  the  blood  of  his  wife,  of  my  daughter  ? 
Your  master,  Fouquier  Tinville,  has  just  ordered  her  to  be  led  to  the  scaf- 
fold. Two  hours  more  and  she  will  not  be  in  existence.  Eobespierre,  if 
you  are  not  a  tiger  in  human  shape,  if  the  blood  of  Camille  has  not  inebri- 
ated you  to  the  point  of  losing  your  reason  entirely,  if  you  recall  still  our 
evenings  of  intimacy,  if  you  recall  to  yourself  the  caresses  you  lavished  upon 


374  TUE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ClIAP.  XXXV. 

the  little  Horace,  and  how  you  delighted  to  hold  him  upon  your  knees,  and 
if  you  remember  that  you  were  to  have  been  my  son-in-law,  spare  an  inno- 
cent victim  !  But,  if  thy  fury  is  that  of  a  lion,  come  and  take  us  also,  my- 
self, Adtile  [her  other  daughter],  and  Horace.  Come  and  tear  us  away  with 
thy  hands  still  reeking  in  the  blood  of  Camille.  Come,  come,  and  let  one 
single  tomb  reunite  us." 

To  this  appeal  Kobespierre  returned  no  reply.  Lucile  was  left  to  her  fate. 
In  the  same  car  of  the  condemned  with  Madame  Hebert  she  was  conducted 
to  the  guillotine.  She  had  dressed  herself  for  the  occasion  with  remarkable 
grace.  A  white  gauze  veil,  partially  covering  her  luxuriant  hair,  embel- 
lished her  marvelous  beauty.  With  alacrity  and  apparent  cheerfulness  she 
ascended  the  steps,  placed  her  head  upon  the  fatal  plank,  and  a  smile  was 
upon  her  lips  as  the  keen-edged  knife,  with  the  rapidity  of  the  lightning's 
stroke,  severed  her  head  from  her  body. 

While  these  cruel  scenes  were  transpiring  in  Paris,  and  similar  scenes  in 
all  parts  of  France,  the  republican  armies  on  the  frontiers  were  struggling 
to  repel  the  invading  armies  of  allied  Europe.  It  was  the  fear  that  internal 
enemies  would  rise  and  combine  with  the  foreign  foe  which  goaded  the  Rev- 
olutionists to  such  measures  of  desperation.  They  knew  that  the  triumph 
')f  the  Bourbons  was  their  certain  death.  The  English  were  now  in  posses- 
sion of  Toulon,  the  arsenal  of  the  French  navy,  which  had  been  treasonably 
surrendered  to  an  English  fleet  by  the  friends  of  the  Bourbons.  A  republi- 
can army  had  for  some  months  been  besieging  the  city,  but  had  made  no 
progress  toward  the  expulsion  of  the  invaders. 

Napoleon  Bonaparte,  then  a  young  man  about  twenty-five  years  of  age 
and  a  lieutenant  in  the  army,  was  sent  to  aid  the  besiegers.  His  genius  soon 
placed  him  in  command  of  the  artillery.  With  almost  superhuman  energy, 
and  skill  never  before  surpassed,  he  pressed  the  siege,  and,  in  one  of  the 
most  terrific  midnight  attacks  which  ever  has  been  witnessed,  drove  the 
British  from  the  soil  of  France.  This  is  the.first  time  that  Napoleon  appears 
as  an  actor  in  the  drama  of  the  Revolution.  The  achievement  gave  him 
great  renown  in  the  army.  On  this  occasion  the  humanity  of  Napoleon  was 
as  conspicuous  as  his  energy.  He  abhorred  alike  the  tyrannic  sway  of  the 
Bourbons  and  the  sanguinary  rule  of  the  Jacobins.  One  of  the  deputies  of 
the  Convention  wrote  to  Carnot,  then  Minister  of  War,  "  I  send  you  a  young 
man  who  distinguished  himself  very  much  during  the  siege,  and  earnestly 
recommend  you  to  advance  him  speedily.  If  you  do  not,  he  will  most  as- 
suredly advance  himself" 

At  St.  Helena  Napoleon  said,  "I  was  a  very  warm  and  sincere  Republi- 
can at  the  commencement  of  the  Revolution.  I  cooled  by  degrees,  in  pro- 
portion a.s  I  acquired  more  just  and  solid  ideas.  My  patriotism  sank  under 
tlie  iv)litical  absurdities  and  monstrous  domestic  excesses  of  our  legisla- 
tures."* 

*  Napoleon  at  St.  Ilelenu,  p.  125. 


1794.]  '  FALL  OF  KOBESPLERRE.  375 


CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

FALL    OF    ROBESPIERRE. 

Inexplicable  Character  of  Robespierre. — Ce'cile  Regnault. — Fete  in  honor  of  the  Supreme  Being. 
— Increase  of  Victims. — The  Triumvirate.  —  Suspicions  of  Robespierre. — Struggle  between 
Robespierre  and  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety.— Conspiracy  against  Robespierre. — Session 

of  the  27th  of  July. — Robespierre  and  his  Friends  arrested. — Eflbrts  to  save  Robespierre. 

Peril  of  the  Convention. — Execution  of  Robespierre  and  his  Confederates. 

EoBESPiERRE,  who  was  HOW  apparently  at  tlie  height  of  liis  power,  is  one 
of  the  most  inexplicable  of  men.  His  moral  character  was  irreproachable ; 
no  bribes  could  corrupt  him  ;  he  sincerely  endeavored  to  establish  a  repub- 
lic founded  upon  the  basis  of  popular  liberty  and  virtue ;  and  self-aggrand- 
izement seems  never  to  have  entered  into  his  aims.  He  was  not  a  blood- 
thirsty man ;  but  was  ready,  with  frigid  mercilessness,  to  crush  any  party 
which  stood  in  the  way  of  his  plans.  His  soul  appears  to  have  been  almost 
as  insensible  to  any  generous  emotion  as  was  the  blade  of  the  guillotine.* 
He  seems  to  have  mourned  the  apparent  necessity  of  beheading  Danton. 
Eepeatedly  he  was  heard  to  say,  perhaps  hypocritically, 

"  Oh,  if  Danton  were  but  honest !  If  he  were  but  a  true  Republican  ! 
What  would  I  not  give  for  the  lantern  of  Diogenes  to  read  the  heart  of  Dau- 
ton,  and  learn  if  he  be  the  friend  or  the  enemy  of  the  Republic  ?" 

Robespierre  would  gladly  have  received  the  aid  of  Danton's  powerful  arm, 
but,  finding  his  old  friend  hostile  to  his  measures,  he  pitilessly  sent  him  to 
the  guillotine.  And  yet  there  is  evidence  that  he  at  times  was  very  wear}- 
of  that  work  of  death  which  he  deemed  it  necessary  to  prosecute.f 

"  Death,"  said  he,  "  always  death ;  and  the  scoundrels  throw  all  the  respon- 
sibility upon  me.  What  a  memory  shall  I  leave  behind  me  if  this  lasts ! 
Life  is  a  burden  to  me." 

On  the  7th  of  May,  1794,  Robespierre  made  a  very  eloquent  speech  in  the 
Convention  advocatmg  the  doctrines  of  a  Supreme  Being  and  the  immortal- 
ity of  the  soul.  He  presented  the  following  decrees,  which  were  adopted  by 
acclamation : 

^^Ari.  1.  The  French  people  recognize  the  existence  of  the  Supreme  Being 
and  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 

*  "Mr.  Alison  gives  currency  to  an  atrocious  slander  against  Robespierre,  for  which  he  has 
adduced  no  authority,  and  which  is  contradicted  by  the  whole  evidence  of  Robespierre's  life. 
'He  (Philippe  Egalite')  was  detained,'  says  Alison,  'above  a  quarter  of  an  hour  in  front  of  the 
Palais  Royal,  by  order  of  Robespierre,  who  had  asked  in  vain  for  the  hand  of  his  daughter  in  mar- 
riage, and  had  promised,  if  he  would  relent  in  that  extremity,  to  excite  a  tumult  which  would 
save  his  life.'  " — Life  of  Robespierre,  by  G.  H.Lewes,  p.  265. 

t  "Danton  regarded  the  austere  principles  of  Robespierre  as  folly.  He  thought  that  the  Re- 
publicans could  not  maintain  their  power  but  by  surrounding  themselves  with  the  consideration 
which  wealth  confers,  and  he  consequently  thought  it  necessary  to  close  their  eyes  against  the 
sudden  acquisition  of  wealth  of  certain  Revolutionists.  Robespierre,  on  the  contrary,  flattered  him- 
self that  he  could  establish  a  republic  in  France  based  on  virtue,  and  when  he  was  thoroughly  per- 
suaded that  Danton  was  an  obstacle  to  that  system  he  abandoned  him." — Biographie  Universelk. 


TUE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


o-rt  TUJi.  i?uji.Auu  xviL,yvjxjoxxvyx,.  [Chap.  XXX\  I. 

''Art.  2.  They  acknowledge  that  the  worship  worthy  of  the  Supreme  Be- 
ino-  is  one  of  the  duties  of  man."  _        -r.  ,       • 

There  were  some  unavailing  attempts  now  made  to  assassinate  Robespierre; 
one  very  singular  in  its  character,  by  a  beautiful  girl,  Ct^cHe  Regnault,but 
seventeen  years  of  age.  She  called  at  Robespierre's  house  and  asked  to  see 
him      Her  appearance  attracted  suspicion,  and  she  was  arrested.     In  her 


CEOILE  EEGNAULT   AEUEBTED. 


basket  a  change  of  clothes  was  found  and  two  knives.  She  was  led  before 
the  Tribunal. 

"What  was  the  object  of  your  visit  to  Robespierre?"  the  president  in- 
'pired. 

" I  wished,"  she  replied,  "to  see  what  a  tyrant  was  like." 

"Why  did  you  provide  yourself  with  the  change  of  clothes?" 

"Because,"  she  calmly  replied,  " I  expected  to  be  sent  to  prison  and  then 
to  the  guillotine." 

"  Did  you  intend  to  stab  Robespierre  ?" 

"  No,"  she  answered,  "  I  never  wished  to  hurt  any  one  in  my  life." 

"Why  are  you  a  Royalist?"  the  president  continued. 

"Because,"  she  replied,  "I  prefer  one  king  to  sixty  tyrants." 

She  was  sent  to  the  guillotine  with  all  her  family  relations.  The- conduct 
of  this  girl  is  quite  inexplicable,  and  it  is  doubted  whether  she  seriousl}^  con- 
templated any  crime.  When  she  called  to  see  Robespierre  she  left  her  hiifc 
in  her  room  in  a  basket!  Eight  carts  were  filled  with  victims  to  avenge  this 
crime.* 

Robespierre  was  now  so  popular  with  the  multitude  that  all  Paris  rallied 
around  him  with  congratulations. 

The  8th  of  May  was  ajjpointcd  as  a  festival  in  honor  of  the  Supreme  Be- 
ing. R(jbespicrre,  the  originator  of  the  movement,  was  chosen  President  of 
the  Convention,  that  he  might  take  the  most  conspicuous  part  on  the  occa- 
sion.    The  morning  dawned  with  unusual  splendor.     For  that  one  day  the 

♦  Du  Broca. 


1794.]  FALL  OF  ROBESPIERRE.  377 

guillotine  was  ordered  to  rest.  An  amphitheatre  was  erected  in  the  centre 
of  the  garden  of  the  Tuileries,  and  the  spacious  grounds  were  crowded  with 
a  rejoicing  concourse.  The  celebrated  painter  David  had  arranged  the  fete 
with  the  highest  embellishments  of  art.  At  twelve  o'clock  Robespierre  as- 
cended a  pavilion  and  delivered  a  discourse. 

"  Republican  Frenchmen,"  said  he,  "  the  ever  fortunate  day  which  the 
French  people  dedicated  to  the  Supreme  Being  has  at  length  arrived.  Nev- 
er did  the  world  which  he  created  exhibit  a  spectacle  so  worthy  of  his  atten- 
tion. He  has  beheld  tyranny,  crime,  and  imposture  reigning  on  earth.  He 
beholds  at  this  moment  a  whole  nation,  assailed  by  all  the  oppressors  of 
mankind,  suspending  the  course  of  its  heroic  labors  to  lift  its  thoughts  and 
its  prayers  toward  the  Supreme  Being  who  gave  it  the  mission  to  undertake 
and  the  courage  to  execute  them." 

Having  finished  his  brief  address,  he  descended  and  set  fire  to  a  colossal 
group  of  figures  representing  Atheism,  Discord,  and  Selfishness,  which  the 
idea  of  a  God  was  to  reduce  to  ashes.  As  they  were  consumed,  there  ap- 
peared in  their  place,  emerging  from  the  flames,  the  statue  of  Wisdom.  After 
music,  songs,  and  sundry  symbolic  ceremonies,  an  immense  procession  was 
formed,  headed  by  Robespierre,  which  proceeded  from  the  Tuileries  to  the 
Champ  de  Mars.  Here,  after  the  performance  of  pageants  as  imposing  as 
Parisian  genius  could  invent  and  Parisian  opulence  execute,  the  procession 
returned  to  the  Tuileries,  where  the  festival  was  concluded  with  public  di- 
versions.* 

The  pre-eminence  which  Robespierre  assumed  on  this  occasion  excited 
great  displeasure,  and  many  murmurs  reached  his  ears.  Robespierre,  the 
next  day,  entered  complaints  against  those  who  had  murmured,  accused 
them  of  being  Dantonists  and  enemies  of  the  Revolution,  and  wished  to  send 
them  to  the  guillotine.  Each  member  of  the  Convention  began  to  feel  that 
his  head  was  entirely  at  the  disposal  of  Robespierre,  and  gradually  became 
emboldened  to  opposition. 

The  legal  process  by  which  victims  were  arrested  and  sent  to  the  guillo- 
tine had  now  become  simple  and  energetic  in  the  extreme.  •  Any  man  com- 
plained to  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety  of  whom  he  would,  as  sKsjxded 
of  being  unfriendly  to  the  Revolution.  The  committee  immediately  ordered 
the  arrest  of  the  accused.  The  eighteen  prisons  of  Paris  were  thus  choked 
with  victims.  Each  evening  Fouquier  Tinville,  the  public  accuser,  received 
from  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety  a  list  of  those  whom  he  was  to  take 
the  next  day  to  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal.  If  the  committee,  for  any  rea- 
son, had  not  prepared  a  list,  Fouquier  Tinville  was  allowed  to  select  whom 
he  pleased.  To  be  suspected  was  almost  certain  death.  From  the  commence- 
ment of  this  year  (1794)  the  executions  had  increased  with  frightful  rapid- 
ity. In  January  eighty-three  were  executed ;  in  February,  seventy -five ;  in 
March,  one  hundred  and  twenty -three ;  in  April,  two  hundred  and  sixty- 

*  "  Robespierre  had  a  prodigious  force  at  his  disposal.  The  lowest  orders,  who  saw  the  Rev- 
olution in  his  person,  supported  him  as  the  best  representative  of  its  doctrines  and  interests;  the 
armed  force  of  Paris,  commanded  bj  Henriot,  was  at  his  command.  He  had  entire  sway  over 
the  Jacobins,  whom  he  admitted  and  ejected  at  pleasure ;  all  important  posts  were  occupied  by 
his  creatures;  he  had  formed  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal  and  the  new  committee  himself" — 
Mignet,  p.  256. 


378  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [CUAP.  XXXVI, 

three ;  in  May,  three  hundred  and  twenty-four ;  in  June,  six  hundred  and 
seventy -two ;  in  July,  eight  hundred  and  thirty-five  * 

Carts  were  continually  passing  from  the  gates  of  the  Conciergerie  loaded 
with  prisoners,  who  were  promptly  condemned  and  sent  immediately  to  the 
scaflfold.  Malesherbes,  the  intrepid  and  venerable  defender  of  Louis  XVL, 
living  in  retirement  in  the  country,  was  dragged,  with  all  his  family,  to  the 
scaffold.  If  a  man  were  rich,  he  was  suspected  of  aristocracy  and  was  sent 
to  the  guillotine.  K  he  were  learned,  his  celebrity  exposed  him  to  suspicion, 
and  his  doom  was  death.  If  he  were  virtuous,  he  was  accused  of  sympathy 
for  the  victims  of  the  guillotine,  and  was  condemned  to  the  scaffold.  There 
was  no  longer  safety  but  in  vice  and  degradation.  The  little  girls  who  had 
been  led  by  their  fathers  to  attend  a  ball  given  by  the  King  of  Prussia  at 
Verdun  were  all  arrested,  brought  to  Paris,  and  condemned  and  executed. 
"  The  eldest,"  says  Lamartine,  "  was  eighteen.  They  were  all  clothed  in 
white  robes.  The  cart  which  carried  them  resembled  a  basket  of  lilies 
whose  heads  waved  to  the  motion  of  the  arm.  The  affected  executioners 
wept  with  them."  Josephine  Beauhamais,  afterward  the  bride  of  Napoleon, 
was  at  this  time  in  one  of  the  dungeons  of  Paris,  sleeping  upon  a  wretched 
pallet  of  straw,  and  expecting  daily  to  be  led  to  execution. 

Robespierre,  St.  Just,  and  Couthon  were  the  three  leading  men  in  the 
Committee  of  Public  Safety,  and  were  hence  called  the  Triumvirate.  All 
began  now  to  be  weary  of  blood,  and  yet  no  one  knew  how  to  stem  the  tor- 
rent or  when  the  carnage  would  cease.  The  Reign  of  Terror  had  become 
almost  as  intolerable  as  the  tyranny  of  the  old  kings,  but  not  fully  so ;  the 
Reign  of  Terror  crushed  thousands  who  could  make  their  woes  heard ;  des- 
potism crushed  millions  who  were  dumb.  There  was  no  hope  for  France 
but  in  some  energetic  arm  which,  assuming  the  dictatorship,  should  rescue 
hberty  from  the  encroachments  of  kings  and  from  being  degraded  by  the 
mob.  Robespierre  was  now  tlie  most  prominent  man  in  France  and  the 
most  popular  with  the  multitude.  His  friends  urged  him  to  assume  the 
dictatorship. 

Jealousy  of  Robespierre's  ambition  now  began  to  arise,  and  his  enemies 
rapidly  increased.  Whispers  that  he  had  become  a  traitor  to  the  RcpubHc 
and  was  seeking  kingly  power  began  to  circulate.  Popular  applause  is  pro- 
verbially fickle.  Robespierre  soon  found  that  he  could  not  carry  his  meas- 
ures in  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety,  and,  disgusted  and  humiliated,  he 
absented  himself  from  the  sittings.  He  attempted  to  check  the  effusion  of 
blood,  but  was  overruled  by  those  even  more  pitiless  than  himself  He  now 
determined  to  crush  the  committee.  Political  defeat  was  death.  He  must 
either  send  the  committee  to  the  scaffold  or  bow  his  own  head  beneath  the 
knife.  It  was  a  death-struggle  short  and  decisive.  Pretended  lists  were 
circulated  of  the  heads  Robesjiierre  demanded.  Many  in  the  Convention 
were  appalled.  Secret  nightly  councils  were  held  to  array  a  force  against 
him.  The  mob  of  Paris  he  could  command.  Ilenriot,  the  chief  of  the  mil- 
itary force,  was  cntin^ly  subservient  to  his  will.  He  reigned  supreme  and 
without  a  rival  in  the  Jacobin  Club.  His  power  was  apparently  resistless. 
But  despair  nerved  his  foes. 

•  Thiers,  vol.  iu.,  p.  C8,  note  from  Quarterly  Review. 


179-i.]  FALL  OF  ROBESPIERRE.  379 

Three  very  able  men,  accustomed  to  command — Tallien,  Barras,  and  Fr^- 
ron — headed  the  conspiracy  against  Robespierre.  The  party  thus  organized 
was  called  the  Thermidorien^  because  it  was  in  the  month  of  Thermidor 
(July)  that  they  achieved  their  signal  victory,  and,  trampling  upon  the 
corpse  of  Robespierre  and  of  his  adherents,  ascended  to  power.  But  nearly 
all  these  men,  of  all  these  parties,  seem  to  have  had  no  sense  whatever  of 
responsibility  to  God,  or  of  Christianity  as  the  rule  of  life.  They  had  one 
and  all  rejected  the  Gospel  of  our  Savior,  and  had  accepted  human  phi- 
losophy alone  as  their  guide.  They  were  men,  many  of  them,  great  in 
ability,  illustrious  in  many  virtues,  sincerely  loving  their  country,  and  too 
proud  to  allow  themselves  to  be  degraded  by  bribes  or  plunder.  As  the 
general  on  the  battle-field  will  order  movements  which  will  cut  down  thou- 
sands of  men,  thus  did  these  Revolutionists,  without  any  scruples  of  con- 
science, send  hundreds  daily  to  the  guillotine,  not  from  love  of  blood,  but 
because  they  believed  that  the  public  welfare  demanded  the  sacrifice.  And 
yet  there  was  a  cowardly  spirit  impelling  these  massacres.  No  one  dared 
speak  a  word  in  behalf  of  jnercy ,  lest  he  should  be  deemed  in  sympathy 
with  aristocrats.  He  alone  was  safe  from  suspicion  who  was  merciless  in 
denunciation  of  the  suspected.  It  is,  however,  remarkable  that  nearly  all 
the  actors  in  these  scenes  of  blood,  even  in  the  hour  of  death,  protested  their 
conscientiousness  and  their  integrity. 

Robespierre  was  now  involved  in  inextricable  toils.  He  was  weary  of 
blood.  The  nation  was  becoming  disgusted  with  such  carnage.*  He  was 
universally  recognized  as  the  leading  mind  in  the  government,  and  everj- 
act  was  deemed  his  act.  His  enemies  in  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety 
plied  the  guillotine  with  new  vigor,  knowing  that  the  public  responsibility 
would  rest  on  Robespierre.  Robespierre  was  strongly  opposed  to  that  reck- 
less massacre,  and  yet  dared  not  interfere  to  save  the  condemned.  His  own 
dearest  friends  were  arrested  and  dragged  to  the  guillotine,  and  yet  Robes- 
pierre was  compelled  to  be  silent.     Earnestly  he  was  entreated  to  assume 

*  rrudhomme,  a  Republican,  who  wrote  during  this  period  of  excitement,  has  left  six  vol- 
umes of  the  details  of  the  Reign  of  Terror.  Two  of  these  contain  an  alphabetical  list  of  all  the 
persons  put  to  death  by  the  Revolutionary  Tribunals.  He  gives  the  following  appalling  state- 
ment of  the  victims : 

Nobles 1,278 

Noble  women 750 

Wives  of  laborers  and  artisans 1,4G7 

Nuns 350 

Priests 1)135 

Men  not  noble 13,623 

Total  sent  to  the  guillotine 18,G03         18,603 

Women  who  died  of  premature  delivery  3,400 

Women  who  died  in  childbirth  from  grief 348 

Women  killed  in  La  Vende'e 15,000 

Children  killed  in  La  Vende'e 22,000 

Men  slain  in  La  Vendee 900,000 

Victims  under  Carrier  at  Nantes 32,000 

Victims  at  Lyons 31,000 

Total 1,022,351 

This  list,  appalling  as  it  is,  does  not  include  those  massacred  iu  the  prisons,  or  those  shot  at 
Toulon  or  Marseilles. 


380  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXXVI. 

the  dictatorship,  and  rescue  France  from  its  measureless  woe.  Apparently 
he  could  have  done  it  with  ease.  He  refused ;  persistently  and  reiteratedly 
refused.  What  were  his  motives  none  now  can  tell.  Some  say  cowardice 
prevented  him;  others  affirm  that  true  devotion  to  the  Republic  forbade 
him.  The  fact  alone  remains;  he  refused  the  dictatorship,  saying  again 
and  again,  '*  No !  no  Cromwell ;  not  even  I  myself." 

Robespierre  retired  for  some  weeks  from  the  Committee  of  Pifblic  Safety, 
while  blood  was  flowing  in  torrents,  and  prepared  a  very  elaborate  dis- 
course, to  be  delivered  in  the  Convention,  defending  himself  and  assailing 
his  foes. 

On  the  morning  of  the  26th  of  July  Robespierre  appeared  in  the  Con- 
vention, prepared  to  speak.  His  Jacobin  friends,  forewarned,  crowded 
around  him,  and  his  partisans  thronged  the  galleries.  His  foes  were  ap- 
palled, and  trembled ;  but  they  rallied  all  their  friends.  It  was  a  decisive 
hour,  and  life  or  death  was  suspended  on  its  issues.  The  speech,  which  he 
read  from  a  careful]}' -prepared  manuscript,  was  long  and  exceedingly  elo- 
quent. His  foes  felt  that  they  were  crushed,  and  a  silence  as  of  death  for 
a  moment  followed  its  delivery.  The  j)rinting  of  the  speech  was  then  voted, 
apparently  by  acclamation,  and  the  order  for  its  transmission  to  all  the 
Communes  of  the  Republic. 

The  foes  of  Robespierre  were  now  emboldened  by  despair.  Their  fate 
seemed  sealed,  and  consequently  there  was  nothing  to  be  lost  by  any  vio- 
lent struggle  in  self-defense.  Cambon  ventured  an  attack,  boldly  declaring, 
"  One  single  man  paralyzes  the  National  Convention,  and  that  man  is  Rob- 
espierre." Others  followed  with  more  and  more  vigorous  blows.  Robes- 
pierre was  amazed  at  the  audacity.  The  charm  of  his  invincibility  was 
gone.  It  soon  appeared  that  there  was  a  strong  party  opposed  to  Robes- 
pierre, and  by  a  large  majority  it  was  voted  to  revoke  the  resolution  to 
print  the  speech. 

Robespierre,  mute  witli  alarm,  left  the  Convention,  and  hastened  to  his 
friends  in  the  Club  of  Jacobins.  He  read  to  them  the  speech  which  the 
Convention  had  repudiated.  They  received  it  with  thunders  of  applause 
and  with  vows  of  vengeance.  Robespierre,  fainting  with  exhaustion,  said, 
in  conclusion, 

•'  Brothers,  you  have  hoard  my  last  will  and  testament.  I  have  seen  to- 
day that  the  league  of  villains  is  so  strong  that  I  can  not  hope  to  escape 
them.  I  yield  without  a  murmur !  I  leave  to  you  my  memory ;  it  will  be 
dear  to  you,  and  you  will  defend  it." 

INIany  were  affected  even  to  tears,  and,  crowding  around  him,  conjured 
him  to  rally  his  friends  in  an  insurrection.  Ilenriot  declared  his  readiness 
to  march  his  troops  against  the  Convention.  Robespierre,  knowing  that 
death  was  the  inevitable  doom  of  the  defeated  party,  consented,  saying, 

"  Well,  then,  let  us  separate  the  wicked  from  the  weak.  Free  the"  Con- 
vention from  those  who  oppress  it.  Advance,  and  save  the  countrv.  If  in 
these  generous  efforts  we  fail,  then,  my  friends,  you  shall  sec  me  drink  hem- 
lock calmly." 

David,  grasi)ing  his  liand,  enthusiastically  exclaimed,  "Robespierre,  if 
you  drink  hemlock,  I  will  drink  it  with  you."     "  Yes,"  interrupted  a  mul- 


1794.]  FALL  OF  ROBESPIERRE.  381 

titude  of  voices,  "  all !  we  all  will  perish  with  3^ou.  To  die  with  you  is 
to  die  with  the  people," 

One  or  two  of  Hobespierre's  opponents  had  followed  him  from  the  Con- 
vention to  the  Hall  of  the  Jacobins.  Couthon  pointed  them  out  and  de- 
nounced them.  The  Jacobins  fell  upon  them  and  drove  them  out  of  the 
house  wounded  and  with  rent  garments.  "With  difiiculty  they  escaped  with 
their  lives.  Eobespierre  witnessed  this  violence,  and  dreading  the  effects 
of  a  general  insurrection,  withdrew  his  consent  to  adopt  means  so  lawless 
and  desperate.  He  probably  felt  that,  strongly  supported  as  he  was,  he 
would  be  able  the  next  day  to  triumph  in  the  Convention, 

"At  this  refusal,"  says  Lamartine,  "honest,  perhaps,  but  impolitic,  Cof- 
linghal,  taking  Payan  by  the  arm  and  leading  him  out  of  the  room,  said, 

"  '  You  see  plainly  that  his  virtue  could  not  consent  to  insurrection.  Well ! 
since  he  will  not  be  saved,  let  us  prepare  to  defend  ourselves  and  to  avenge 
him.'  " 

The  night  was  passed  by  both  parties  in  preparing  for  the  decisive  strife 
of  the  next  day.  The  friends  of  Eobespierre  were  active  in  concerting,  in 
all  the  quarters  of  Paris,  a  rising  of  the  people  to  storm  the  Convention. 
Tallien,  Barras,  Freron,  Fouche,  slept  not.  They  were  informed  of  all  that 
had  passed  at  the  Jacobins,  and  their  emissaries  brought  them  hourly  intel- 
ligence through  the  night  of  the  increasing  tumult  of  the  people.  They 
made  vigorous  preparations  for  the  debate  within  the  walls  and  for  the  de- 
fense of  the  doors  against  the  forest  of  pikes  with  which  it  was  about  to  be 
assailed,  Barras  was  intrusted  with  the  military  defense.  It  was  resolved 
that  Robespierre  should  be  cried  down  and  denounced  by  internal  tumult 
and  not  permitted  to  spealj.  Each  party,  not  knowing  the  strength  of  its 
opponents,  was  sanguine  of  success. 

The  morning  of  the  27th  of  July  dawned,  and  as  Robespierre  entered  the 
Convention,  attired  with  unusual  care,  and  with  a  smile  of  triumph  upon  his 
lips,  silence  and  stillness  reigned  through  the  house.  St.  Just,  in  behalf  of 
Robespierre,  commenced  the  onset,  A  scene  of  tumult  immediately  ensued 
of  which  no  adequate  description  can  be  given,  Robespierre  immediately 
saw  that  his  friends  were  far  outnumbered  by  his  foes,  and  was  in  despair. 
Pale  and  excited,  he  attempted  to  ascend  the  tribune.  Tallien  seized  by  the 
coat  and  dragged  him  away,  while  cries  of  Doiun  with  the  tyrant  filled  the 
house.* 

"Just  now,"  shouted  Tallien,  taking  the  tribune  from  which  he  had 
ejected  Robespierre,  "  I  demanded  that  the  curtain  should  be  withdrawn  ;  it 
is  so  ;  the  conspirators  are  unmasked  and  liberty  will  triumph.  Up  to  this 
moment  I  had  preserved  utter  silence  because  I  was  aware  that  the  tyrant 
had  made  a  list  of  proscriptions.  But  I  was  present  at  the  sitting  of  the 
Jacobins.  I  beheld  the  formation  of  the  army  of  this  second  Cromwell,  and 
I  armed  myself  with  this  poniard,  with  which  to  pierce  his  heart  if  the  Na- 
tional Convention  had  not  the  courage  to  order  his  arrest," 

*  The  full  report  of  this  terrible  scene,  as  contained  in  the  Moniteur  of  the  11th  Thermidor,  is 
one  of  the  most  exciting  narratives  in  history.  In  the  conflict  Robespierre  appears  immeasurably 
superior  to  his  opponents  in  dignity  and  argument.  But  he  is  overwhelmed  and  crushed  by  the 
general  clamor.     He  struggles  valiantly,  and  falls  lik^  a  strong  man  armed. 


382 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXXVI. 

\      . 


fl.J.  \!HiiLmm\^\: 


I 


BOIinSl-IEEItE  ATTEMrmsO  ni8  DEFENSE. 


With  these  words  he  drew  a  dagger  and  pointed  it  menacingl.y  at  the  breast 
of  Rcjbespierrc.  At  the  same  time  he  moved  the  arrest  of  Ilenriot  and 
uthers  of  the  leading  men  of  that  party.  The  motion  was  tunuiltuously  car- 
ried. In  vain  llolx'spierre  attempted  to  gain  a  hearing.  Cries  of  "Down 
with  the  tyrant"  filled  the  house,  and  menaces,  reproaches,  and  insults  were 


1794.]  FALL  OF  KOBESriERRE.  333 

heaped  upon  liim  without  measure.  The  ■wretched  man,  overwhelmed  by 
the  clamor,  turned  pale  with  indignation,  and  shouted  "  President  of  assas- 
sins, will  you  hear  me?"  "  No!  no!  no!"  seemed  to  be  the  unanimous  re- 
sponse. In  the  midst  of  the  uproar  Louchet  moved  the  arrest  of  Eobespierre. 
The  proposition  was  received  with  thunders  of  applause.'^  The  brother  of 
Eobespierre,  a  young  man  of  gentle,  affectionate  nature  and  many  virtues, 
who  was  universally  esteemed,  now  rose,  and  said, 

"I  am  as  guilty  as  my  brother.  I  have  shared  his  virtues,  I  wish  to 
share  his  fate." 

Eobespierre  instantly  interposed,  saying,  "I  accept  my  condemnation. 
I  have  deserved  your  hatred.  But,  crime  or  virtue,  my  brother  is  not  guilty 
of  that  which  you  strike  in  me." 

Shouts  and  stamping  drowned  his  voice.  As  cries  of  FiVe  la  RepulAique 
rose  on  all  sides,  Eobespierre  qiiietly  folded  his  arms,  and,  with  a  contempt- 
uous smile,  exclaimed,  "  The  Eepublic !  it  is  destroyed ;  for  scoundrels  tri- 
umph." It  was  now  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  The  two  Eobespierres, 
Couthon,  St.  Just,  and  Lebus  were  led  by  gens  cVarmes  from  the  Convention 
across  the  Place  du  Carrousel  to  the  Hotel  de  Brionne,  where  the  Commit- 
tee of  General  Safety  were  in  session.  A  crowd  followed  the  prisoners  with 
derision  and  maledictions.  As  they  entered  the  Carrousel  a  procession  of 
carts,  containing  forty-five  victims  on  their  way  to  the  guillotine,  met  them. 

After  a  very  brief  examination  Eobespierre  was  sent  to  the  Luxembourg. 
His  confederates  were  distributed  among  the  other  jorisons  of  Paris.  The 
Mayor  of  Paris  and  Henriot  were  in  the  mean  time  active  in  endeavors  to 
excite  an  insurrection  to  rescue  the  prisoners.  The  following  proclamation 
was  issued  from  the  Hotel  de  Ville  : 

"  Brothers  and  friends !  the  country  is  in  imminent  danger !  The  wicked 
have  mastered  the  Convention,  where  they  hold  in  chains  the  virtuous  Eob- 
espierre. To  arms !  to  arms !  Let  us  not  lose  the  fruits  of  the  18th  of  Au- 
gust and  the  2d  of  June." 

Henriot,  waving  his  sword,  swore  that  he  would  drag  the  scoundrels  who 
voted  the  arrest  of  Eobespierre  through  the  streets  tied  to  the  tail  of  his 
horse.  This  brutal  man  was  now  in  such  a  state  of  intoxication  as  to  be  in- 
capable of  decisive  action.  Flourishing  a  pistol,  he  mounted  his  horse,  and, 
with  a  small  detachment  of  troops,  galloped  to  the  Luxembourg  to  rescue 
his  friend.  He  was  met  on  the  way  by  the  troops  of  the  Convention,  who 
had  been  ordered  to  arrest  him.  They  seized  him,  dragged  him  from  his 
horse  bound  him  with  their  belts,  and  threw  him  into  a  guard-house,  almost 
dead-drunk.  In  the  mean  time  the  populace  rescued  all  the  prisoners,  and 
carried  them  in  triumph  to  the  mayor's  room  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  Eobes- 
pierre however,  notwithstanding  the  most  earnest  entreaties  of  the  Jacobins 
and  the  municipal  government,  refused  to  encourage  or  to  accept  the  insur- 
rection, or  to  make  escape  from  arrest.     "  Made  prisoner,"  writes  Lamar- 

*  "In  the  heipht  of  the  terrible  conflict,  when  Robespierre  seemed  deprived  by  rape  of  the 
power  of  articulation,  a  voice  cried  out,  'It  is  Danton's  blood  that  is  choking  you:  Robcsj)ierre, 
indignant,  recovered  his  voice  and  courage  to  exclaim,  '  Danton  !  Is  it,  then,  Danton  you  regret  ? 
Cowards  I  why  did  you  not  defend  him  ?'  There  was  spirit,  truth,  and  even  dignity  in  this  bitter 
retort— the  last  words  that  Robespierre  ever  spoke  in  iiuhUc:'— Quarterly  Revieiv. 


og^  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXXVI. 

tine  "  by  command  of  liis  enemies,  he  resolved  either  to  triumph  or  fall 
submissive  to  the  law  only ;  added  to  which,  he  firmly  believed  the  Revolu- 
tionary Tribunal  would  acquit  him  of  all  laid  to  his  charge  ;  or,  if  not,  and 
if  even  condemned  to  death,  '  the  death  of  one  just  man,'  said  he,  '  is  less 
hurtful  to  the  Republic  than  the  example  of  a  revolt  against  the  national 

representation.' "  ^  tt      •         /-,  «- 

News  was  brought  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville  of  the  arrest  of  Ilenriot.  Coffin- 
hal,  Vice-president  of  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal,  immediately  rallied  the 
mob,  rushed  to  the  Tuileries,  released  Henriot,  who  was  by  this  time  some- 
what sobered,  and  brought  him  back  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  Henriot,  exas- 
perated by  his  arrest,  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  his  troops  and  marched 
with  a  battery  against  the  Convention.  At  this  stage  of  the  affair  no  one 
could  judge  which  party  would  be  victorious.  The  city  government,  with 
the  populace  at  its  disposal,  was  on  one  side ;  the  Convention,  with  its  friends, 
on  the  other.* 

It  was  now  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening,  and  the  deputies  of  the  Conven- 
tion, fully  conscious  of  their  peril,  seemed  almost  speechless  with  terror. 
Robespierre  and  his  confederates  were  rescued  and  protected  by  the  city 
government;  the  mob  was  aroused,  and  the  National  Guard,  under  their 
leader,  Henriot,  were  marching  against  the  Convention.  The  Revolutionary- 
Tribunal,  which  alone  could  condemn  Robespierre,  it  was  feared  would  ac- 
quit him  by  acclamation.  He  would  then  be  led  back  in  triumph  to  the 
Convention,  and  his  foes  would  be  speedily  dragged  to  the  guillotine.  The 
dismal  tolling  of  the  tocsin  now  was  heard ;  in  the  Jacobin  Club  the  oath 
was  taken  to  live  or  die  with  Robespierre ;  the  rallying  masses  were  crowd- 
ing in  from  the  faubourgs ;  cannon  were  pointed  against  the  Convention ; 
and  three  thousand  young  students  seized  their  arms  and  rendezvoused  as  a 
body-guard  for  Robespierre. 

In  this  critical  hour  the  Convention,  nerved  by  despair,  adopted  those 
measures  of  boldness  and  energy  which  could  alone  save  them  from  destruc- 
tion. As  they  were  deliberating,  Henriot  placed  his  artillery  before  their 
doors  and  ordered  them  to  be  blown  open.  The  deputies  remained  firmly 
in  their  seats,  saying,  "  Here  is  our  post,  and  here  we  will  die."  The  friends 
of  the  Convention,  who  crowded  the  galleries,  rushed  out  and  spread  them- 
selves through  the  streets  to  rally  defenders  for  the  laws.  Several  of  the 
deputies  also  left  the  hall,  threw  themselves  among  the  soldiers,  and,  remon- 
strating with  them,  pointed  to  Ilenriot,  and  said, 

"  Soldiers  !  look  at  that  drunken  man !  who  but  a  drunkard  would  ever 
point  his  arms  against  his  country  or  its  representatives?  Will  you,  who 
have  ever  deserved  so  much  from  your  country,  cast  shame  and  dishonor 
on  lier  now  ?" 

The  Convention  had  outlawed  Henriot  and  appointed  Barras  to  the  com- 
mand of  the  National  Guard  in  his  place.  The  soldiers  began  to  waver. 
Henriot,  affrighted,  ])ut  spurs  to  his  horse  and  fled.  Barras,  an  energetic 
man,  was  now  in  command,  and  the  tide  had  thus  suddenly  and  strongly 

*  The  ninto  of  the  times  is  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  Barrtrc  is  reporfeJ  to  have  pone  to  the 
Convention  witii  two  si.eeches  in  his  jjocket,  one  assailinp  Kohospierre  and  the  other  defending 
liiin.     He  knew  not  which  party  would  triumph,  and  he  was  prepared  to  join  the  strongest. 


1794] 


FALL  OF  ROBESPIERRE. 


885 


DEMONSTEATION  AG^VIXST  THE  CONVENTION,    HEADED  BY  HENKIOT, 

turned  in  favor  of  the  Convention.  It  was  now  niglit,  and  the  gleam  of  teii 
thousand  torches  was  reflected  from  the  multitudes  surging  through  the 
streets.  Barras,  on  horseback,  with  a  strong  retinue,  traversed  the  central 
(quarters  of  Paris,  rallying  the  citizens  to  the  defense  of  the  Convention. 
Eighteen  hundred  bold,  well-armed  men  were  soon  marshaled  before  the 
doors.  With  two  other  bands  he  marched  along  parallel  streets  to  the  Place 
de  Greve,  where  he  drove  off  the  disorderly  crowd  and  secured  all  the  ap- 

Bb 


386  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXXYI. 

preaches  to  the  Hotel  de  Yille.  Eobespierre  was  still  in  one  of  the  rooms 
of  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  surrounded  by  his  confederates  and  by  the  members 
of  the  city  government.  They  implored  him  to  authorize  an  insurrection, 
assuring  him  that  his  name  would  rally  the  populace  and  rescue  them  all 
from  inevitable  death.  But  Robespierre  persistently  refused,  declaring  that 
he  would  rather  die  than  violate  the  laws  established  by  the  people. 

A  detachment  of  soldiers,  sent  by  Barras,  cautiously  ascended  the  steps, 
and  entered  the  Salle  de  VEgalite  to  rearrest  the  rescued  prisoners.  As  they 
were  ascending  the  stairs  Lebas  discharged  a  pistol  into  his  heart  and  fell 
dead.  The  younger  Eobespierre  leaped  from  the  window  into  the  court- 
yard, breaking  his  leg  by  his  fall.  Coflfinhal,  enraged  in  contemplating  the 
ruin  into  which  the  drunken  imbecility  of  Henriot  had  involved  them,  seized 
him  and  threw  him  out  of  a  window  of  the  second  story  upon  a  pile  of  rub- 
bish, exclaiming, 

"  Lie  there,  wretched  drunkard !  You  are  not  worthy  to  die  on  a  scaf- 
fold !" 

Robespierre  sat  calmly  at  a  table,  awaiting  his  fate.  One  of  the  gens 
'Tarmes  discharged  a  pistol  at  him.  The  ball  entered  his  left  cheek,  fractur- 
ing his  jaw  and  carrying  away  several  of  his  teeth.  His  head  dropped  upon 
the  table,  deluging  with  blood  the  papers  which  were  before  him.  The 
troops  of  the  Convention  now  filled  the  Hotel  de  Yille,  arresting  all  its  in- 
mates. The  day  was  just  beginning  to  dawn  as  the  long  file  of  prisoners 
were  led  out  into  the  Place  de  Grieve  to  be  conducted  to  the  hall  of  the  Con- 
vention.* 

First  came  Robespierre,  borne  by  four  men  on  a  litter.  His  fractured 
jaw  was  bound  up  by  a  handkerchief,  which  was  steeped  in  blood.  Couthon 
was  paralytic  in  his  limbs.  Unable  to  walk,  he  was  also  carried  in  the  arms 
of  several  men.  They  had  carelessly  let  him  fall,  and  his  clothes  were  torn, 
disarranged,  and  covered  with  mud.  Robespierre  the  younger,  stunned  by 
his  fall  and  with  his  broken  limb  hanging  helplessly  down,  was  conveyed 
insensible  in  the  arms  of  two  men.  The  corpse  of  Le"bas  was  borne  next  in 
this  sad  train,  covered  with  a  table-cloth  spotted  with  his  blood.  Then  fol- 
lowed St.  Just,  bareheaded,  with  dejected  countenance,  his  hands  bound  be- 
hind him.  Upward  of  eighty  members  of  the  city  government,  bound  two 
and  two,  completed  the  melancholy  procession. 

It  was  five  o'clock  in  the  morning  when  the  captives  were  led  to  the  Tuil- 
cries.  In  the  mean  time  Legendrc  had  marched  to  the  assembly-room  of 
the  Jacobins,  dispersed  them,  locked  their  doors,  and  brought  the  keys  to  the 
President  of  the  Convention.f 

Robespierre  was  laid  upon  a  table  in  an  anteroom,  while  an  interminable 
crowd  pressed  in  and  around  to  catch  a  sight  of  the  fallen  dictator.  The  un- 
happy man  was  overwhelmed  with  reproaches  and  insults,  and  feigned  death 
to  escape  this  moral  torture.    The  blood  was  freely  flowing  from  his  wound, 

*  ThoiiRh  it  hns  Renerally  been  represented  that  Robespierre  attempted  to  commit  suicide,  the 
evidence  now  seems  to  bo  conchisivo  tlmt  he  did  not.  Sec  Lamartine's  History  of  the  Girond- 
ists, vol.  iii.,  p.  r,'n. 

t  LcKcndre,  the  butcher,  was  a  deputy  of  the  Convention.  Ho  was  a  man  of  extraordinary  ncr\'c, 
iind  had  been  one  of  the  most  furious  members  of  the  society  oi  Jixeohxns.—Biog.Univers'clk. 


1794] 


FALL  OF  ROBESPIERRE. 


387 


UOCESPIEEBE  LYING  WOUNDED  ON  TITE  TABLE  OP  THE  CITY   HALL. 

coagulating  in  his  mouth,  and  choking  him  as  it  trickled  down  his  throat. 
The  morning  was  intensely  hot ;  not  a  breath  of  pure  air  could  the  wounded 
man  inhale ;  insatiable  thirst  and  a  burning  fever  consumed  him ;  and  thus 
he  remained  for  more  than  au  hour,  enduring  the  intensest  pangs  of  bodily 
and  mental  anguish.  By  order  of  the  Convention,  he  and  his  confederates 
were  then  removed  to  the  Committee  of  General  Safety  for  examination ; 
from  which  tribunal  they  were  sent  to  the  Conciergerie,  where  they  were  all 
thrown  into  the  same  dungeon  to  await  their  trial,  which  was  immediately 
to  take  place  before  the  Eevolutionary  Tribunal. 

A  few  hours  of  pain,  anguish,  and  despair  passed  away,  when  at  three 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon  the  whole  party  were  conveyed  to  that  merciless 
court  which  was  but  the  last  stepping-stone  to  death.  The  trial  lasted  but 
a  few  moments.  They  were  already  condemned,  and  it  was  only  necessary 
to  prove  their  identity.  The  Convention  was  victorious,  and  no  man  of  the 
Eevolutionary  Tribunal  dared  to  resist  its  will.  Had  the  Commune  of  Paris 
conquered  in  this  strife,  the  obsequious  Tribunal,  with  equal  alacrity,  would 
have  consigned  the  Deputies  to  the  guillotine. 

At  five  o'clock  the  carts  of  the  condemned  received  the  prisoners.*  The 
long  procession  advanced  through  the  Eue  St.  Honore  to  the  Place  de  la 
Eevolution.  The  fickle  crowd  thronged  the  streets,  heaping  imprecations 
upon  the  man  to  whom  they  would  have  shouted  hosanna  had  he  been  a 
victor.     Eobespierre,  his  brother,  Couthon,  Henriot,  all  mangled,  bleeding, 

*  There  is  some  confusion  respecting  the  dates  of  these  events ;  but  we  follow  the  dates  as 
given  by  Lamartine. 


388  THE  FKEXCII  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXXVI. 

and  with  broken  bones,  were  thrown  into  the  first  cart  with  the  corpse  of 
Ijcba=;.     As  the  cart  jolted  over  the  pavement  shrieks  of  anguish  were  ex- 


BOBESPIEBEE   AND  HIS   COMPANIOSS   LED   TO  EXECUTION. 


sorted  from  the  victims.  At  six  o'clock  they  reached  the  steps  of  the  guil- 
lotine. Robespierre  ascended  the  scaffold  with  a  firm  step ;  but,  as  the  exe- 
cutioner brutally  tore  the  bandage  from  his  inflamed  wound,  he  uttered  a 
shriek  of  torture  which  pierced  every  ear.  The  dull  sullen  sound  of  the 
QUling  axe  was  heard,  and  the  head  of  Robespierre  fell  ghastly  into  the  bas- 
ket. For  a  moment  there  was  silence,  and  then  the  crowd  raised  a  shout  as 
if  a  great  victory  had  been  achieved  and  the  long-sought  blessings  of  the 
Revolution  attained.* 

Thus  diod  Robespierre,  in  the  thirty-fifth  year  of  his  age.  His  character 
will  proba'jly  ever  remain  a  mystery.  "  His  death  was  the  date  and  not  the 
cause  of  the  cessation  of  terror.  Deaths  would  have  ceased  by  his  triumphs, 
:ls  they  did  by  his  death.    Thus  did  Divine  justice  dishonor  liis  repentance, 

*  " Robespierre, "  said  Napoleon,  "was  by  no  moans  the  worst  character  wlio  fipurcd  in  the, 
Hr^volution.  He  opposed  trying  the  queen.  He  was  not  an  atheist;  on  the  contrary,  he  had 
publicly  maintained  the  existence  of  a  Supreme  Being  in  opposition  to  many  of  his  colleagues. 
Neitlu-r  was  he  of  opinion  that  it  was  necessary  to  exterminate  all  priests  and  nobles,  like  many 
otiiers.  Marat,  for  cxamjilc,  maintained  tliat  it  was  necessary  that  six  hundred  thousand  heads 
should  full.  R(,l)esi)icrro  wanted  to  proclaim  the  kinp  an  oiitlaw,  and  not  to  go  tlirouph  the  ri- 
diculous mockery  of  irying  him.  Robespierre  was  a  fanatic,  a  monster,  but  he  was  incorrujiti- 
l)le,  and  incapable  of  robl)ing  or  causinp  the  deaths  of  others  cither  from  personal  enmity  or  a  de- 
sire of  enriching  himself.  He  was  an  enthusiast,  but  one  who  really  believed  that  he  was  acting 
right,  and  died  not  worth  a  sou.  In  sc.mo  resiKJcts  Robespierre  may  be  said  to  have  boon  an  hon- 
est \nnn."— Napoleon  at  St.  Helena,  j).  r.'.»0. 


1794.]  THE  THEKMIDORIANS  AND  THE  JACOBINS.  339 

and  cast  misfortune  on  his  good  intentions,  making  of  his  tomb  a  gulf  filled 
up.  It  has  made  of  his  memory  an  enigma  of  which  history  trembles  to  pro- 
nounce the  solution,  fearing  to  do  him  injustice  if  she  brand  it  as  a  crime,  or 
to  create  horror  if  she  should  term  it  a  virtue.  This  man  was,  and  must 
ever  remain,  shadowy  and  undefined."* 

Twenty-two  were  beheaded  with  Robespierre.  The  next  day  seventy  who 
were  arrested  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville  were  sent  to  the  guillotine.  The  follow- 
ing day  twelve  more  bled  upon  the  scafibld.  In  three  days  one  hundred 
and  fourteen  perished,  untried,  by  that  tyranny  which  had  supplanted  the 
tyranny  of  Robespierre.f 


CHAPTER  XXXVII. 

THE  THEEMIDORIANS  AND   THE   JACOBINS. 

The  Reign  of  Committees. — The  Jeunesse  Doree. — The  Reaction. — IMotion  against  Fouquier 
Tinville. — Apotheosis  of  Rousseau. — Battle  of  Fleurus.— Brutal  Order  of  the  Committee  of 
Public  Welfare. — Composition  of  the  two  Parties. — Speech  of  Billaud  Varenncs.— Speech  of 
Legendre. — The  Club-house  of  the  Jacobins  closed. — Victories  of  Pichegru. — Alliance  between 
Holland  and  France. — Advance  of  Kleber. — Peace  with  Prussia. — Quiberon. — Riot  in  Lyons. 

The  fall  of  Robespierre  was  hailed  with  general  enthusiasm,  for  he  was 
believed  to  be  the  chief  instigator  of  that  carnage  which,  in  reality,  at  the 
time  of  his  fall,  he  was  struggling  to  repress.  There  were  now  in  the  Con- 
vention the  headless  remains  of  four  parties,  the  Girondists,  Hebertists,  Dan- 
tonists,  and  Robespierrians.  The  able  leaders  of  all  these  parties  had,  each 
in  their  turn,  perished  upon  the  scaffold.  There  now  arose  from  these  ruins 
a  party,  which  was  called,  as  we  have  before  remarked,  Thermidorians^  from 
the  month  Thermidor  (July),  in  which  its  supremacy  commenced.  A  new 
government  was  immediately  and  noiselessly  evolved,  the  result  of  necessity. 
The  extreme  concentration  of  power  in  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety,  over 

*  History  of  the  Girondists,  by  Lamartine,  vol.  iii.,  p.  535. 

t  "Mirabeau,  Marat,  Brissot,  Danton,  Robespierre  were  all  heads  cut  off  in  succession;  and 
all  succeeding  heads  were  saved  only  by  having  recourse  to  one  head  and  one  arm  in  the  Em- 
peror Napoleon." — Life  and  Works  of  John  Adams,  vol.  vi.,  p.  547. 

Though  Mirabeau  died  a  natural  death,  he  would  unquestionably  have  been  guillotined  had  he 
lived  a  few  months  longer. 

Meda,  the  officer  of  the  Convention  who  arrested  Robespierre  and  his  associates  at  the  Hotel 
de  Ville,  thus  describes  the  event:  "The  head  of  my  column  moved  forward;  a  terrible  noise 
ensued  ;  my  ten  pieces  of  artillery  were  brought  forward  and  ready ;  those  opposed  to  me  in  like 
manner.  I  threw  myself  between  the  two  lines.  I  flew  to  the  cannoneers  of  the  enemy.  I  spoke 
to  them  of  their  country ;  of  the  respect  due  to  the  national  representation ;  in  short,  I  do  not 
well  remember  what  I  said,  but  the  result  was  that  they  all  came  over  to  us.  I  instantly  dis- 
mounted, seized  my  pistols,  addressed  myself  to  my  grenadiers,  and  made  for  the  stair-case  of 
the  Hotel  de  Ville."  He  describes  the  manner  in  which  he  forced  his  way  up  the  stairs,  broke 
open  the  door,  and  found  about  fifty  people  assembled  in  the  room  in  great  confusion.  Robes- 
jiierre  was  sitting  at  a  table,  his  head  leaning  upon  his  hand.  "I  rushed  upon  him,"  he  contin- 
ues, in  his  narrative,  "presented  my  sabre  to  his  breast,  'Yield,  traitor,'  I  cried.  'It  is  thou 
art  the  traitor,'  he  replied,  'and  I  will  have  thee  shot.'  I  instantly  drew  out  one  of  my  pistols, 
and  fired  at  him.  I  aimed  at  his  breast,  but  the  ball  hit  him  about  the  chin,  and  shattered  all 
his  left  jaw.  He  fell  from  his  chair.  At  the  sound  of  the  explosion  his  brother  threw  himself 
through  the  window.     The  uproar  was  immense.     I  cried  '  Vive  la  Ripuhlique .''  " 


390 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


[Chap.  XXXYH. 


which  Robespierre  had  been  supposed  to  rule  as  a  dictator,  was  now  succeed- 
ed by  a  dissemination  of  power,  wide  and  ineffective.  Sixteen  committees 
became  the  executive  of  France ;  one  Assembly  its  legislative  power.  These 
committees  were  composed  of  members  numbering  from  twelve  to  fifty.  The 
Committee  of  Public  Welfare  contained  twelve,  and  superintended  militar}- 
and  diplomatic  operations ;  that  of  General  Safety  sixteen,  and  had  the  di- 
rection of  the  police ;  that  of  Finance  forty -eight.  Such  was  the  new  gov- 
ernment, under  which,  after  the  fall  of  Robespierre,  the  Republic  struggled 
along. 

The  horrors  of  the  Reign  of  Terror  were  now  producing  a  decided  reac- 
tion. Many  of  the  young  men  of  Paris,  who  abhorred  the  past  scenes  of  vi- 
olence, organized  themselves  into  a  band  called  the  Jeunesse  Doree,  or  Gilded 
Youth,  and  commenced  vigorous  opposition  to  the  Jacobins.  They  wore  a 
distinctive  dress,  and  armed  themselves  with  a  short  club  loaded  with  lead. 
Frequent  conflicts  took  place  in  the  streets  between  the  two  parties,  in  which 
the  Jeunesse  Doree  were  generally  victorious.  The  Terrorists  having  be- 
come unpopular,  and  being  in  the  decided  minority,  the  guillotine  was  soon 
allowed  to  rest.  Mercy  rapidly  succeeded  cruelty.  The  captives  who  crowd- 
ed the  prisons  of  Paris  were  gradually  liberated,  and  even  the  Revolution- 
ary Tribunal  was  first  modified  and  then  abolished. 

The  reaction  was  so  strong,  annulling  past  decrees,  liberating  suspected 
Loyalists,  and  punishing  violent  Revolutionists,  that  even  many  of  the  true 


ooToittji  U,  17114 


1794.] 


THE  THERMIDORIANS  AND  THE  JACOBINS. 


391 


friends  of  popular  rights  were  alarmed  lest  the  nation  should  drift  back 
again  under  the  sway  of  old  feudal  despotism.  M.  Frdron,  in  the  following 
terms,  moved,  in  the  Convention,  an  act  of  accusation  against  the  execrable 
Fouquier  Tinville,  who  had  been  public  accuser : 

"  I  demand  that  the  earth  be  at  length  delivered  from  that  monster,  and 
that  Fouquier  be  sent  to  hell,  there  to  wallow  in  the  blood  he  has  shed." 

The  decree  was  passed  by  acclamation.  In  the  space  of  eight  or  ten  days 
after  the  fall  of  Robespierre,  out  of  ten  thousand  suspected  persons  not  one 
remained  in  the  prisons  of  Paris.*  For  many  weeks  nothing  of  moment  oc- 
curred in  the  Convention  but  the  petty  strife  of  factions.  On  the  11th  of 
October  the  remains  of  Rousseau  were  transferred  to  the  Pantheon  with  all 
the  accompaniments  of  funeral  pageantry.  They  were  deposited  by  the  side 
of  the  remains  of  Voltaire.  Upon  his  tomb  were  inscribed  the  words,  "  Here 
reposes  the  man  of  nature  and  of  truth." 

About  a  month  before  the  fall  of  Robespierre,  on  the  26th  of  June,  the 
celebrated  battle  of  Fleurus  was  fought.  The  sanguinary  engagement  ex- 
tended along  a  semicircle  nearly  thirty  miles  in  extent.  The  French  had 
brought  up  about  eighty  thousand  troops,  to  oppose  an  equal  number  of  the 
Allies.  The  French,  under  Pichegru,  were  victorious  at  every  point,  and 
the  Allies  were  compelled  to  retreat.     They  rallied  for  a  short  time  in  the 


BATTLE  OF  FLEUEU3. 


vicinity  of  Brussels,  but  were  soon  again  compelled  to  letire,  and  all  Bel- 
gium fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Repubhcans. 

*  Lacre telle. 


392  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXXVII. 

About  the  middle  of  July  two  armies  of  the  French,  amounting  to  one 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand,  effected  a  junction  in  the  city  of  Brussels.  The 
Committee  of  Public  Safety  had  passed  an  inhuman  decree  that  no  quarter 
should  be  given  to  the  English.  The  soldiers  refused  obedience  to  this  de- 
cree. A  sergeant,  having  taken  some  English  prisoners,  brought  them  to 
an  officer. 

"  Why  did  you  spare  their  lives  ?"  the  officer  inquired. 

"  Because,"  the  sergeant  replied,  "  it  was  saving  so  many  shots." 

"  True,"  rejoined  the  officer,  "  but  the  Kepresentatives  wiU  oblige  us  to 
shoot  them." 

"  It  is  not  we,"  retorted  the  sergeant,  "  who  will  shoot  them.  Send  them 
to  the  Representatives.  Kthey  are  barbarous  enough,  why,  let  them  kill  and 
eat  them  if  they  like."* 

While  the  French  armies  were  gaining  these  signal  victories  all  along  the 
Rhine,  war  was  raging  with  almost  equal  ferocity  in  the  ravines  of  the  Alps 
and  at  the  base  of  the  Pyrenees,  as  the  Republicans  struggled  to  repel  the 
invading  hosts  of  Austria,  England,  and  Spain. 

The  Thermidorians  and  the  Jacobins  were  now  the  two  great  parties 
struggling  for  power  all  over  France.  The  Thermidorians  were  the  mod- 
crate  conservative  party,  and  the  Jacobins  called  them  Aristocrats.  The 
Jacobins  were  the  radical,  progressive,  revolutionary  party,  and  the  Ther- 
midorians called  them  Terrorists.  The  more  intelligent  and  reputable  por- 
tion of  the  community  were  with  the  Thermidorians ;  the  women,  weary 
of  turmoil  and  blood,  were  very  generally  with  them ;  and  the  very  efficient 
military  band  of  young  men  called  the  Jeunesse  Dork  (gilded  youth),  who  be- 
longed to  the  rich  and  middle  classes,  were  very  efficient  supporters  of  this 
})arty,  hurling  defiance  upon  the  Jacobins,  and  ever  ready  for  a  street  fray 
with  their  clubs.  The  Jacobins  were  composed  of  the  mob,  generally  head- 
ed by  those  vigorous,  reckless,  determined  men  who  usually  form  what 
Thiers  calls  "  the  ferocious  democracy."  Freron's  journal.  The  Orator  of  the 
People^  was  the  eloquent  advocate  of  the  Thermidorians,  now  rising  rapidly 
to  power,  and  it  lanehed  incessant  and  merciless  anathemas  against  the  rev- 
olutionary canaille.  The  females  who  advocated  Jacobinism  -were  called  the 
furies  of  the  r/uillotine,  because  they  had  frequently  formed  circles  around  the 
scaffold,  assailing  the  victims  with  ribald  abuse.  These  two  parties  were  so 
equally  divided,  and  the  strife  was  so  fierce  between  them,  that  scenes  of 
fearful  uproar  frequently  took  place  not  only  in  the  Convention  but  through- 
out all  France.  The  spirit  of  the  Jacobins  at  this  time  may  be  seen  in  the 
following  brief  extract  from  a  speech  of  Billaud  Varcnnes  : 

"People  talk,"  said  he,  "of  shootings  and  drownings,  but  they  do  not  rec- 
ollect that  the  individuals  for  whom  they  feel  pity  had  furnished  succors  to 
the  banditti.  Thoy  do  not  recollect  the  cruelties  perpetrated  on  our  volun- 
teers, who  were  hanged  upon  trees  and  shot  in  files.  If  vengeance  is  de- 
mand.'d  for  tlie  banditti,  let  the  families  of  two  hundred  thousand  Republic- 
un.s,  mercilessly  slaughtered,  come  also  to  demand  vengeance.  The  course 
of  counter-revolutionists  is  known.  When,  in  the  time  of  the  Constituent 
Assembly,  they  wanted  to  l)ring  the  Revolution  to  trial,  they  called  the  Jac- 

♦  Thiers,  vol.  iii.,  p.  84. 


1794.]  THE  THERMIDORIANS  AND  THE  JACOBINS.  393 

obins  disorganizcrs  and  shot  them  in  the  Field  of  Mars.  After  the  2d  of 
September,  when  they  wanted  to  prevent  the  estabhshment  of  the  Republic, 
they  called  them  quaffers  of  blood  and  loaded  them  with  atrocious  calumnies. 
They  are  now  recommencing  the  same  machinations ;  but  let  them  not  ex- 
pect to  triumph.  The  Patriots  have  been  able  to  keep  silence  for  a  moment, 
but  the  lion  is  not  dead  when  he  slumbers,  and  when  he  awakes  he  exter- 
minates all  his  enemies.  The  trenches  are  open,  the  Patriots  are  about  to 
rouse  themselves  and  to  resume  all  their  energy.  We  have  already  risked 
our  lives  a  thousand  times.  If  the  scaffold  awaits  us,  let  us  recollect  that 
it  was  the  scaffold  which  covered  the  immortal  Sidney  with  glory." 

This  speech,  reported  in  the  journal  of  the  Jacobins,  called  the  Journal  de 
la  Montague^  created  great  excitement,  and  gave  rise  to  one  of  the  stormiest 
debates  in  the  Convention.  The  Jacobins  were  accused  of  wishing  to  di- 
rect the  mob  against  the  Convention.  They,  on  the  other  hand,  accused  the 
Thermidorians  of  releasing  well-known  Royalists  from  prison,  and  of  thus 
encouraging  a  counter-revolution.  Legendre,  speaking  in  behalf  of  the 
Thermidorians,  in  reply  to  the  Jacobins,  said, 

"What  have  you  to  complain  of,  you  who  are  constantly  accusing  us? 
Is  it  because  citizens  are  no  longer  sent  to  prison  by  hundreds  ?  because  the 
guillotine  no  longer  dispatches  fifty,  sixty,  or  eighty  persons  per  day  ?  Ah ! 
I  must  confess  that  in  this  point  our  pleasure  differs  from  yours,  and  that 
our  manner  of  sweeping  the  prisons  is  not  the  same.  We  have  visited  them 
ourselves ;  we  have  made,  as  far  as  it  was  possible  to  do  so,  a  distinction  be- 
tween the  Aristocrats  and  the  Patriots ;  if  we  have  done  wrong,  here  are  our 
heads  to  answer  for  it.  But  while  we  make  reparation  for  crimes,  while  we 
are  striving  to  make  you  forget  that  those  crimes  are  your  own,  why  do  you 
go  to  a  notorious  society  to  denounce  us,  and  to  mislead  the  people  who  at- 
tend there,  fortunately  in  no  great  numbers  ?  I  move  that  the  Convention 
take  measures  to  prevent  its  members  from  going  and  preaching  up  rebel- 
lion at  the  Jacobins'." 

The  conflict  extended  from  the  Convention  into  the  streets,  and  for  sever- 
al days  there  were  serious  riots.  Angry  groups  in  hostile  bands  paraded 
the  gardens  of  the  Tuileries  and  the  Palais  Royal — the  partisans  of  the  Ther- 
midorians shouting  ^^  Down  with  the  Terrorists,  and  JRohespierre's  tail"  Their 
opponents  shouted  "  The  Jacobins  forever!     Down  with  the  Aristocrats!'''' 

On  the  9th  of  November  there  was  a  battle  between  the  two  parties  in 
the  Rue  St.  Honore,  in  and  around  the  hall  of  the  Jacobins,  which  lasted 
for  several  hours.  A  number  of  the  women,  called  Furies  of  the  Guillotine, 
who  mingled  in  the  fray,  were  caught  by  the  Jeunesse  Dork,  and,  in  defiance 
of  all  the  rules  of  chivalry,  had  their  clothes  stripped  from  their  backs  and 
were  ignominiously  whipped.  It  was  midnight  before  the  disturbance  was 
quelled.     A  stormy  debate  ensued  next  day  in  the  Convention. 

"  Where  has  tyranny,"  said  Rewbel,  "  been  organized  ?  At  the  Jacobins'. 
Where  has  it  found  its  supporters  and  satellites?  At  the  Jacobins'.  Who 
have  covered  France  with  mourning,  carried  despair  into  families,  filled  the 
country  with  prisons,  and  rendered  the  Republic  so  odious  that  a  slave, 
pressed  down  by  the  weight  of  his  irons,  would  refuse  to  live  under  it  ? 
The  Jacobins.     Who  regret  the  frightful  government  under  which  we  have 


394 

lived  ?     The  Jacobins 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXXVII. 


If  you  have  not  now  the  courage  to  declare  your- 
selves, you  have  no  longer  a  Kepublic,  because  you  have  Jacobins." 

Influenced  by  such  sentiments,  the  Convention  passed  a  decree  "  to  close 
the  door  of  places  where  factions  arise  and  where  civil  war  is  preached." 


THE  CLUB-HOUSE  OF  THE  JACOBEiS  CLOSED. 


Thus  terminated  the  long  reign  of  the  Jacobin  Club.  The  act  was  greeted 
with  acclaim  b}'-  the  general  voice  of  France.* 

The  French,  who  had  twelve  hundred  thousand  men  under  arms,  were 
now  in  possession  of  all  the  important  points  on  the  Khine,  and  every  where 
held  their  assailants  at  bay.f  The  latter  part  of  December,  Pichegru,  driv- 
ing the  allied  Dutch,  English,  and  Austrians  before  him,  crossed  the  Meuse 
on  the  ice  and  entered  Holland.  The  Eepublican  party  in  Holland  was 
numerous  and  detested  their  rulers.  They  immediately  prepared  to  rise  and 
welcome  their  friends,  the  French.  In  this  desperate  situation  the  Stadt- 
holdcr  implored  a  truce,  offering  as  a  condition  of  peace  neutrality  and  in- 
demnification for  the  expenses  of  the  war.:}:  Pichegru  refused  the  truce ; 
but  sent  the  terms  of  peace  for  the  consideration  of  the  government  in  Paris. 
The  proffered  terms  were  refused,  and  Pichegru  was  ordered  to  press  on  and 
restore  the  Dutch  Republic.  At  the  head  of  two  hundred  thousand  troops 
he  spread,  like  a  torrent,  over  all  Holland.  He  was  every  where  received 
with  open  arms  and  as  a  deliverer.  The  Allies,  with  the  emigrants,  fled  in 
all  directions,  some  by  land  and  some  by  sea.  A  portion  of  the  Dutch  fleet, 
at  anchor  near  thu  Tcxel,  was  frozen  in  by  the  unparalleled  severity  of  the 

•  "  This  popular  hotly  had  powerfully  Rcrvcd  the  Revolution  when,  in  order  to  repel  Europe, 
it  was  necessary  to  idnce  the  poverninent  in  the  multitude,  and  to  Rive  the  Republic  all  the  en- 
orny  of  defense  ;   hut  now  it  only  obstructed  the  new  order  of  things. "—3//(;ne^  282. 

t  "At  one  time  France  had  seventeen  hundred  thousand  fighters  on  foot." — Touloncjeon,  vol. 
'•'•.  P-  I'J^-  X  Thiers,  vol.  iii.,  p.  180. 


1795.]  THE  THERMIDOEIANS  AND  THE  JACOBINS.  395 

winter.  A  squadron  of  horse-artillery  galloped  across  the  ice  and  sum- 
moned it  to  surrender.  The  fleet  was  compelled  to  strike  its  flags  to  these 
novel  assailants.  On  the  20th  of  January,  1795,  Pichegru  entered  Amster- 
dam in  triumph.  The  inhabitants  crowded  from  the  walls  to  meet  him, 
shouting  "  The  French  BepuhUc  forever  !  Liberty  forever  P' 


THE  FBENCH  ENTEKENG  AMSTEKDAM  ON  THE  ICE. 


Holland,  organizing  as  the  Eepublic  of  the  United  Provinces,  on  the  16th 
of  May  entered  into  an  alliance  offensive  and  defensive  with  the  French  Ee- 
public, to  be  perpetual  during  the  continuance  of  the  war.  The  two  infant 
republics  needed  mutual  suj)port  to  resist  the  combined  monarchies  of  En- 
gland and  the  Continent.* 

While  Pichegru  was  gaining  such  victories  on  the  Lower  Ehine  and  in 
Holland,  Kleber  was  also,  on  the  Upper  Ehine,  driving  the  Austrians  before 
him.  He  boldly  crossed  the  river  in  the  impetuous  pursuit,  and  carried  the 
horrors  of  war  into  the  enemies'  country.  Soon,  however,  he  was  crowded 
with  such  numbers  of  antagonists  that  he  was  compelled,  in  his  turn,  to 
commence  a  retreat.  Again,  re-enforcements  arriving,  he  assumed  the  offens- 
ive.    Thus  the  tide  of  war  ebbed  and  flowed. 

Prussia,  alarmed  by  these  signal  victories  of  the  Eepublican  troops,  and 
threatened  with  invasion,  was  anxious  to  withdraw  from  the  coalition.    The 


*  "The  first  act  of  the  Representatives  was  to  publish  a  proclamation,  in  which  they  declared 
that  they  would  respect  all  private  property,  excepting,  however,  that  of  the  Stadtholder ;  that 
the  latter,  being  the  only  foe  of  the  French  Republic,  his  property  belonged  to  the  conquerors  as 
an  indemnification  for  the  expenses  of  the  war;  that  the  French  entered  as  friends  of  the  Bata- 
vian  nation,  not  to  impose  upon  it  any  religion  or  any  form  of  government  whatever,  but  to  deliver 
it  from  its  oppressors,  and  to  confer  upon  it  the  means  of  expressing  its  wishes.  This  proclama- 
tion, followed  up  by  corresponding  acts,  produced  a  most  favorable  impression." — Thiers,  vol. 
iii.,  p.  184. 


396 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXXVII. 


%. 


THE  FEENCH  CROSSING  THE  EUINE  UUDEE  KLEBEE. 


king  sent  a  commissioner  to  Pichegru's  head-quarters  to  propose  peace. 
The  commissioners  from  the  two  countries  met  at  Basle,  and  on  the  5th  of 
April  a  treaty  of  peace  was  signed.  The  French  agreed  to  evacuate  the 
Prussian  provinces  they  had  occupied  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Ehine,  and 
the  Prussian  monarchy  agreed  that  there  should  be  peace,  amity,  and  a 
good  understanding  between  the  King  of  Prussia  and  the  French  Republic. 

Spain,  also,  trembling  in  view  of  the  triumphant  march  of  Dugommier 
through  the  defiles  of  the  Pyrenees,  made  proposals  of  accommodation, 
promising  to  acknowledge  the  Republic  and  to  pay  indemnities  for  the  war. 
Peace  with  the  Peninsula  was  signed  at  Basle  on  the  12th  of  July.  This 
peace,  which  detached  a  Bourbon  from  the  coalition,  was  hailed  throughout 
France  with  transports  of  joy.* 

England,  Austria,  and  Naples  still  remained  firm  in  their  determination 
to  crush  the  Republic.  William  Pitt  led  the  ministry  with  his  warlike 
measures,  and  triumphed  over  the  peaceful  policy  of  Sheridan  and  Fox. 
lie  thus,  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  converted  all  Europe  into  a  field  of 
blood.  Roused  by  the  energies  of  Pitt,  the  English  government  organized 
a  very  formidable  expedition,  to  be  landed  in  La  Vendue,  to  rouse  and  rally 
the  Royalists  all  over  France,  and  thus  to  reinvigorate  the  energies  of  civil 
war.  A  squadron  was  fitted  out,  consisting  of  three  74-gun  ships,  two  frig- 
ates of  44  guns,  four  frigates  of  30  to  36  guns,  and  several  gvm-boats  and 

*  "Tuscany,  forced,  in  sjiitc  of  herself,  to  give  up  her  neutrality  by  the  English  cmbaspndor. 
who,  threatening  her  with  nn  English  squadron,  had  allowed  her  but  twelve  hours  to  decide, 
was  impatient  to  resiinic  her  part,  espeeinlly  since  the  French  were  at  the  gates  of  Genoa.  Gooil 
understanding  and  friendship  were  re-established  between  the  two  states."— T/ners,  vol.  iii.,  p. 
230. 


1795.] 


THE  THERMIDORIANS   AND    THE  JACOBINS. 


397 


^i  ^rt 


VIOIOEV  OF  QUIBEEON. 


transports.  This  was  the  first  division,  which,  as  soon  as  it  was  estabhshed 
in  France,  was  to  be  followed  by  another.  The  fleet  came  to  anchor  in  the 
Bay  of  Quiberon  on  the  25th  of  June.  A  motley  mass  of  about  seven 
thousand  men  were  speedily  landed ;  the  Royalists  soon  joined  them,  mak- 
ing an  army  of  some  thirteen  thousand.  General  Hoche,  who  had  for  some 
time  been  valiantly  and  most  humanely  struggling  for  the  pacification  of 


MABSACKE  IN   LYONS  LED   BY   THE   I'KIKSTy. 


I 


398  'JfHE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXXVIII. 

La  Yend6e  inarched  to  repel  them.  A  few  bloody  battles  ensued,  in  which 
the  unhappy  invaders  were  driven  into  a  narrow  peninsula,  where,  by  a 
midnight  assault,  they  most  miserably  perished.  A  few  only  escaped  to 
the  ships ;  many  were  drowned,  and  a  large  number  were  mercilessly  put 
to  the  sword.  The  Convention  had  decreed  the  penalty  of  death  to  any 
Frenchman  who  should  enter  France  with  arms  in  his  hands. 

At  Lyons  there  was  a  general  rising  of  the  Royalists  and  the  reactionary- 
party  against  the  Revolutionists.  The  Royalists  proved  themselves  not  one 
whit  behind  the  Jacobins  in  the  energy  with  which  they  could  push  their 
Reign  of  Terror.  Led  by  the  priests,  the  Royahst  mob  broke  into  the  pris- 
ons and  murdered  seventy  or  eighty  prisoners  who  were  accused  of  revolu- 
tionary violence.  One  prison  was  set  on  fire,  and  all  its  inmates  perished 
miserably  in  the  flames. 

The  disturbances  in  Lyons  were  soon  quelled,  and  Hoche,  having  anni- 
hilated the  force  which  the  English  had  landed  in  the  Bay  of  Quiberon, 
gradually  succeeded  in  introducing  tranquillity  into  La  Vendde.  Many  of 
the  Royalists  came  to  his  camp  to  seek  terms  of  reconciliation  with  the  Re- 
pubUc. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 

DISSOLUTION  OF  THE   CONVENTION. 


Famine  in  Paris. — Strife  between  the  Jeunesse  Doree  and  the  Jacobins. — Riots. — Scene  in  the 
Convention. — War  with  the  Allies. — A  new  Constitution. — Insurrection  of  the  Sections. — 
Enerpy  of  General  Bonaparte. — Discomfiture  of  the  Sections. — Narrative  of  the  Duchess  of 
Abrantcs. — Clemency  of  the  Convention. — Its  final  Acts  and  Dissolution,  and  Establishment 
of  the  Directory. 

Let  us  return  to  Paris.  The  unprecedented  severity  of  the  winter  had 
caused  fearful  suficring  among  the  populace  of  Paris.  The  troubled  times 
had  broken  up  all  the  ordinary  employments  of  peace.  The  war,  which 
had  enrolled  a  million  and  a  half  of  men  under  arms,  had  left  the  fields  un- 
cultivated and  deserted.  A  cruel  famine  wasted  both  city  and  country. 
The  Jacobins,  who,  though  their  clubs  were  closed,  still  met  at  the  corners 
of  the  streets  and  in  the  coffee-houses,  took  advantage  of  this  public  misery 
to  turn  popular  indignation  against  the  victorious  Thermidorians.  Tumults 
wer.e  again  renewed,  and  hostile  partisans  met  in  angry  conflicts.  The 
young  men  of  the  two  parties  had  frequent  encounters  in  the  pits  of  the 
theatres,  bidding  each  other  defiance,  and  often  proceeding  to  blows. 

At  the  Theatre  Fcydeau,  as  in  many  other  places,  there  was  a  bust  of  ^Nfa- 
rat,  who  was  still  idolized  by  the  Jacobins.  The  young  men  of  the  Jeunesse 
Dorcc,  in  expression  of  their  detestation  of  Marat,  and  as  an  insult  to  the 
JacobiiLS,  climbed  the  balcony,  threw  down  tlie  bust,  and  with  shouts  of  ex- 
ecration dragged  it  through  the  mire  of  the  streets. 

The  Jacobins,  exasperated,  swore  to  avenge  the  insult.  Strongly  armed, 
they  paraded  the  streets,  carrying  a  bust  of  Marat  in  triumph,  and  swearing 
bloody  vengeance  upon  any  who  might  attempt  to  disturb  their  march.  The 
finnuess  of  the  Convention  alone  averted  a  sanguinary  conflict.     The  public 


1795.] 


DISSOLUTION  OF  THE  CONVENTION. 


^i^- 


TITE  JEUNESSE  DOEEE  TUBOWrNG   TUB  BUST  OF  MAEAT  INTO  THE  GUTTER. 


distress,  intense  and  almost  nniversal,  embarrassed  and  overwhelmed  the  Con 
vention  with  the  most  difficult  questions  in  the  endeavor  to  afford  relief.  On 
the  15th  of  March  the  supply  of  food  in  Paris  was  so  small  that  it  was  deemed 
necessary  to  put  the  inhabitants  upon  rations,  each  individual  being  allowed 
but  one  pound  of  bread  per  day.  Agitation  and  tumults  were  now  rapidly 
increasing,  and  there  were  daily  riots.     The  Convention  was  continually  be- 


400  TUE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [CuAP.  XXXVUI. 

sieged  and  insulted  by  haggard  multitudes  with  petitions  which  assumed 
the  tone  of  fiercest  threats.  Scenes  of  confusion  ensued  which  bade  defiance 
to  all  law,  and  which  there  was  no  authority  to  repress. 

On  the  20th  of  May  there  was  one  of  the  most  fearful  tumults  which  the 
Revolution  had  yet  witnessed.  At  five  in  the  morning  the  generale  was 
beating  in  the  public  squares  and  the  tocsin  ringing  in  the  faubourgs.  The 
populace  were  rapidly  mustering  for  any  deeds  of  violence  to  which  their 
leaders  might  conduct  them.  At  eleven  o'clock  the  Convention  commenced 
its  sitting.  One  of  the  members  brought  in  a  plan,  which  he  had  secretly 
obtained,  of  a  very  efficiently -organized  insurrection.  2V  crowd,  mostly  of 
women,  filled  the  galleries.  As  the  plan  was  read,  which  appalled  the  dep- 
uties, the  galleries  vociferously  applauded.  The  Convention  passed  a  few 
harmless  decrees,  such  as,  1st,  that  the  city  government  was  responsible  for 
any  attack  upon  the  Convention ;  2d,  that  all  the  citizens  were  bound  to  re- 
ceive orders  from  the  Convention ;  and  8d,  that  there  should  be  no  insur- 
rection. These  decrees  but  provoked  the  derision  of  the  galleries.  The 
tumult  now  became  so  great,  the  women  shouting  "Bread!"  and  shaking 
their  fists  at  the  president  and  the  deputies,  that  all  business  was  at  a  stand, 
and  not  a  word  of  debate  could  be  heard. 

At  length,  some  soldiers  were  sent  into  the  galleries  with  bayonets,  and 
the  women  were  driven  into  the  streets.  They  soon,  however,  returned, 
aided  by  their  friends.  They  battered  down  all  the  doors  and  broke  in  and 
filled  the  hall  with  an  armed,  shouting,  brutal  mob.  Some  of  the  citizens 
rallied  for  the  defense  of  the  Convention,  and  a  fierce  battle  raged  within 
the  hall  and  around  the  doors.  Pistols  and  muskets  were  discharged,  swords 
clashed,  bayonet  crossed  bayonet,  while  yells  and  shrieks  and  imprecations 
deafened  the  ear.  Drunken  women  strode  over  the  benches  and  clambered 
to  the  president's  chair.  A  young  deputy,  Feraud,  was  stabbed,  then  shot ; 
his  head  was  cut  off,  and,  pierced  by  a  pike,  was  thrust  into  the  face  of  the 
president,  Boissy  d'Anglas,  who  most  heroically  maintained  his  post  and  his 
composure  through  all  these  perilous  scenes.  For  six  hours  the  tumult 
raged  unabated.  It  was  now  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening,  and  the  mob 
drove  all  the  deputies,  like  a  flock  of  sheep,  into  the  centre  of  the  hall,  sur- 
rounded them  with  bristling  bayonets  and  pikes,  and  ordered  them  to  issue 
decrees  for  the  relief  of  the  people.  At  length,  near  midnight,  a  detach- 
ment of  the  National  Guard  arrived,  dispersed  the  crowd  around  the  palace, 
and,  entering  the  hall  with  fixed  bayonets,  scattered  the  rioters.  Tranquil- 
Uty  being  restored,  one  of  the  members  rose  and  said, 

"  It  is  then  true  that  this  Assembly,  the  cradle  of  the  Eepublic,  has  once 
more  well  nigh  been  its  tomb.  Fortunately,  the  crime  of  the  conspirators  is 
l)revented.  But,  Representatives,  you  would  not  be  worthy  of  the  nation  if 
you  were  not  to  avenge  it  in  a  signal  manner." 

The  rest  of  the  night  was  passed  in  devising  schemes  to  crush  the  Jacobin 
power  which  had  organized  this  insurrection.  The  Duchess  of  Abrantes. 
who  wa.s  then  in  Paris,  thus  alludes  to  these  events:  "While  the  most 
frightful  scenes,"  she  writes,  "  were  passing  in  the  Convention,  the  respect- 
able inliabitants  of  Paris  shut  themselves  up  in  their  houses,  concealed  their 
valuables,  and  awaited,  with  fearful  anxiety,  the  result.     Toward  evening 


1795.] 


DISSOLUTION  OF  THE  CONVENTION. 


'"  I  I  !^ 


401 


eCENE  EN  THE  NATIONAL  CONVENTION. 


my  brother,  whom  we  had  not  seen  during  the  day,  came  home  to  get  some- 
thing to  eat ;  he  was  ahnost  famished,  not  having  tasted  food  since  the  morn- 
ing. Disorder  still  raged,  and  we  heard  the  most  frightful  noise  in  the 
streets,  mingled  with  the  beating  of  drums.  My  brother  had  scarcely  finished 
his  hasty  repast  when  General  Bonaparte  arrived  to  make  a  similar  claim 
upon  our  hospitality.  He  also  had  tasted  nothing  since  the  morning,  for  all 
the  restaurateurs  were  closed.  He  soon  dispatched  what  my  brother  had 
left,  and  as  he  was  eating  he  told  us  the  news  of  the  day.     It  was  most  ap- 

Cc 


402  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [Chap.  XXXVIII. 

palling ;  my  brother  had  informed  us  but  of  part.  He  did  not  know  of  the 
assassination  of  the  unfortunate  Feraud,  whose  body  had  been  cut  almost 
piecemeal.  '  They  took  his  head,'  said  Bonaparte,  '  and  presented  it  to  poor 
Boissy  d' Anglas,  and  the  shock  of  this  fiend-like  act  was  almost  death  to  the 
president  in  his  chair.  Truly,'  added  he,  '  if  we  continue  thus  to  sully  our 
Revolution,  it  will  be  a  disgrace  to  be  a  Frenchman.'  "* 

Alarmed  by  the  advance  of  anarchy,  the  Convention  immediately  insti- 
tuted proceedings  against  several  prominent  Jacobin  members,  who  were 
known  to  be  ringleaders  of  the  insurrection.  They  were  arrested  and  con- 
signed to  imprisonment  in  the  Castle  of  Ham.  Paris  was  declared  to  be  in 
a  state  of  siege,  and  Pichegru,  then  in  the  full  lustre  of  his  glory,  was  ap- 
pointed commander  of  the  armed  force.  The  carriages  which  conveyed  the 
arrested  deputies  to  the  Castle  of  Ilam  had  to  pass  through  the  Elysian 
Fields.  The  Jacobins  assembled  in  strong  numbers  and  endeavored  to  res- 
cue them.  The  energy  of  Pichegru  repelled  the  attempt.  A  fight  ensued, 
with  cannon  and  small  arms,  in  which  several  lives  were  lost. 

"While  these  melancholy  scenes  were  transpiring  in  Paris,  the  combined 
fleets  and  armies  of  England,  Austria,  and  Kaples  were  fiercely  assailing 
the  Republic  at  pvery  vulnerable  point.  England,  being  undisputed  mis- 
tress of  the  sea,  had  nothing  to  fear  from  the  conflagration  which  she  was 
kindling  all  over  Europe.  To  stimulate  impoverished  Austria  to  the  war, 
the  British  government  loaned  her  $28,000,000  (£4,600,000).  She  aug- 
mented her  own  naval  force  to  a  hundred  thousand  seamen,  put  into  com- 
mission one  hundred  and  eight  ships  of  the  line,  and  raised  her  land  forces 
to  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  men.f 

The  question  to  be  decided  was,  whether  France  had  a  right  to  abolish 
monarchy  and  establish  a  republic.  It  is  in  vain  for  the  Allies  to  say  that 
they  were  contending  against  the  outrages  which  existed  in  France,  for 
their  hostile  movements  preceded  these  scenes  of  carnage,  and  were  the  effi- 
cient cause  of  nearly  all  the  calamities  that  ensued.  And,  deplorable  as  was 
the  condition  of  France  during  the  Reign  of  Terror,  even  that  reign  was  far 
more  endurable  by  the  masses  of  the  people  than  the  domination  of  the  old 
feudal  despotism. 

Carlyle  makes  the  following  appalling  statement,  the  truth  of  which  will 
not  be  denied  by  any  careful  student  of  the  Old  Regime : 

"  History,  looking  back  over  this  France  through  long  times — back  to 
Turgot's  time,  for  instance,  when  dumb  Drudgery  staggered  up  to  its  king's 
l)alace,  and,  in  wide  expanse  of  sallow  faces,  squalor,  and  winged  ragged- 
ness,  presented  hieroglyphically  its  petition  of  grievances,  and,  for  answer, 
got  hanged  on  a  new  gallows  forty  feet  high — confesses  mournfully  '■''that 
Uiere  is  no  period  in  which  the  general  tiuenty-five  millions  of  France  suffered 
less  Oian  in  this  period  which  they  named  the  Beign  of  Terror/ 

"  But  it  was  not  the  dumb  millions  that  suffered  here ;  it  was  the  speak- 
ing thousands,  and  hundreds,  and  units,  who  shrieked  and  published,  and 
made  the  world  ring  with  their  wail,  as  they  could  and  should ;  that  is  the 
grand  peculiarity.     The  frightfulcst  births  of  time  are  never  the  loud- 

*  Memoirs  of  the  Duchcssc  d'Abrnntcs,  p.  90. 
t  Thiers,  vol.  iu.,  p.  242.     New  Animal  Register. 


1795.]  *  DISSOLUTION  OF  THE  CONVENTION.  4Q3 

speaking  ones,  for  these  soon  die ;  they  are  the  silent  ones,  which  live  from 
century  to  century."* 

The  Koyalist  emigrants,  taking  advantage  of  the  clemency  of  the  Thcr- 
midorians,  began  now  to  return  to  France  in  great  numbers,  and  were  very 
active  every  where  in  trying  to  promote  a  counter-revolution,  and  in  forming 
conspiracies  to  overthrow  the  Kepublic  and  re-establish  the  Bourbons.  They 
were  supplied  with  immense  sums  of  money  to  expend  as  bribes. 

A  new  Constitution  was  formed  to  meet  the  new  emero-encies  of  the 
country.  Instead  of  one  General  Assembly,  they  had  two  legislative  bodies. 
The  Senate,  called  the  Council  of  the  Ancients,  consisted  of  two  hundred  and 
fifty  members,  of  at  least  forty  years  of  age,  and  all  were  to  be  either 
widowers  or  married;  one  third  to  be  renewed  every  year.  The  lower 
house,  called  the  Council  of  the  Five  Hundred,  was  to  be  composed  of  mem- 
bers of  at  least  thirty  years  of  age,  to  be  renewed  also  annually  by  one 
third.  Instead  of  an  executive  of  sixteen  committees,  five  Directors  were 
intrusted  with  the  executive  power,  to  be  renewed  annually  by  one  fifth. 
Thus  organized,  the  ship  of  state  was  again  launched  upon  its  stormy  voy- 
age, to  encounter  tempests  without  and  mutiny  within.  This  Constitution 
was  the  work,  of  the  moderate  Republican  party,  and  restored  the  ascend- 
ency of  the  middle  class.  As  such  it  was  obnoxious  to  the  Jacobius.f 
France  was  now  so  rent  by  hostile  parties  that  no  Constitution  could  long 
stand. 

The  old  Constituent  Assembly  had,  by  a  decree  which  was  intended  to 
be  very  patriotic  and  self-denying,  excluded  itself  from  the  Legislative  As- 
sembly which  was  to  succeed'  it.  This  act,  however,  proved  to  be  inju- 
dicious and  disastrous.  The  Legislative  Assembly,  wishing  to  secure  a  ma- 
jority friendly  to  moderate  Republicanism  in  the  two  bodies  to  be  elected 
under  the  new  Constitution,  decreed  that  two  thirds  of  their  oion  members 
should  he  elected  to  the  two  new  legislative  bodies.  This  decree,  which  was 
accepted  with  great  imanimity  by  France  as  a  whole,  was  exceedingly  ob- 
noxious to  the  Royalists  and  to  the  Jacobins  of  Paris,  both  of  whom  hoped 
to  obtain  a  majority  under  the  new  Constitution.  These  two  extremes  now 
joined  hands,  and,  as  usual,  appealed  for  support  to  insurrection  and  the 
terrors  of  the  mob.  There  was  no  excuse  for  this  violence,  for  the  Constitu- 
tion was  accepted  almost  unanimously  by  France,  and  the  decrees  by  an  im- 
mense majority.  It  was  in  Paris  alone  that  there  was  any  opposition,  and 
even  there  the  opposition  was  only  to  the  decrees.  Still,  Royalists  and  Jaco- 
bins united  to  crush  the  will  of  the  nation  by  a  Parisian  mob. 

Paris  was  divided  in  forty-eight  electoral  sections  or  wards.  The  section 
of  Lepelletier  was  the  focus  of  the  gathering  storm.  The  tocsin  was  rung, 
drums  beat,  and  armed  bands  collected.  The  Convention  sent  General  Me- 
nou,  a  kind-hearted  man,  to  surround  this  section  and  disarm  it.  Overawed 
by  the  high  rank  of  the  leaders,  Menou  parleyed  with  them,  and,  at  length, 
alarmed  by  their  numbers,  their  strength,  and  their  determination,  by  a  sort 
of  capitulation  disgracefully  retreated. 

*  Carlyle's  History  of  the  French  Revolution,  vol.  ii.,  p.  4C0. 

t  "This  Constitution  was  the  best,  the  wisest,  the  most  liberal,  and  the  most  provident  that 
had  as  yet  been  established  or  projected ;  it  contained  the  result  of  six  years'  revolutionary  and 
legislative  experience." — Mignet,  p.  301. 


404 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION,  [CnJfP.  XXXVIII. 


Napoleon  Bonaparte  vras  then  in  Paris,  out  of  employment,  and  was  that 
evening  at  the  Theatre  Feydeau.  Some  friends  came  and  informed  him  of 
the  scenes  which  were  transpiring.  He  immediately  left  the  theatre  and 
hastened  to  the  gallery  of  the  Assembly,  to  witness  the  effect  which  would 
be  produced  upon  that  body  by  the  tidings  of  the  retreat  of  Menou.* 

He  found  the  Assembly  in  great  commotion.  Some  one  had  moved  the 
arrest  of  Menou,  and  his  trial  for  treason.  It  was  a  scene  of  tumult  and 
alarm,  many  speaking  at  once.  Barras,  who  had  acquired  some  reputation 
for  intrepidity  and  energy,  was  appointed  as  chief  of  the  forces  in  the  place 
of  Menou.  Barras,  who  was  well  acquainted  with  the  energetic  character 
of  Napoleon,  and  who  probably  saw  him  in  the  galler}^,  immediately  re- 
quested that  General  Bonaparte  should  be  appointed  as  his  second  in  com- 
mand. Barras  knew  his  man,  and  was  willing  to  surrender  to  the  young 
brigadier-general  the  entire  superintendence  of  the  military  arrangements  to 
quell  the  revolt. 

The  Convention  had  five  thousand  troops  at  its  command.  The  sections 
now,  with  clamor  and  tumult,  were  marching  upon  them  with  forty-five  thou- 
sand. Barras  was  a  man  of  commanding  stature  and  of  powerful  frame. 
Napoleon,  though  he  had  acquired  at  Toulon  a  high  reputation  in  the  army, 
was  but  little  known  in  Paris.  When  Barras  introduced  to  the  Convention 
the  young  general,  a  small,  slender,  pale-faced,  smooth-cheeked  youth,  who 
seemed  to  be  not  more  than  eighteen  years  of  age,  all  were  surprised. 


,£'^  iii 


VI-OI.KON    IIKKOBE  TUE  CU.N  VENTIO.N. 


"Arc  you  willing,"  inquired  the  president,  "to  undertake  the  defense  of 
the  Convention?" 

"  Yes,"  was  the  laconic  reply. 

*  Las  Cusas. 


1795.]  DISSOLUTION  OF  THE  CONVENTION.  405 

The  president  hesitated,  and  then  continued,  "But  are  jou  aware  of  the 
magnitude  of  the  undertaking?" 

Napoleon  fixed  that  eagle  eye  upon  him  which  few  could  meet  without 
quailing,  and  replied,  "  Perfectly ;  and  I  am  in  the  habit  of  accomplishing 
that  which  I  undertake.  But  one  condition  is  indispensable.  I  must  have 
the  unlimited  command,  entirely  untrammelcd  by  any  orders  from  the  Con- 
vention." 

There  was  no  time  for  debate ;  and  even  the  most  stupid  could  see  that  in 
such  an  hour  the  public  safety  could  only  be  secured  by  the  prompt,  concen- 
trated action  of  a  single  mind,  sufficiently  powerful  to  meet  the  emergency. 
The  characteristic  traits  of  Napoleon's  character  were  perhaps  never  more 
conspicuously  displayed  than  on  this  occasion — his  self-reliance,  his  skill  in 
the  choice  of  agents,  his  careful  preparation  against  the  possibility  of  defeat, 
and  his  fortitude  in  doing  whatever  might  be  necessary  for  the  accomplish- 
ment of  his  plans. 

Not  a  moment  was  lost.  At  Sablons,  a  few  miles  from  Paris,  there  was  a 
park  of  forty  pieces  of  artillery.  Napoleon  dispatched  a  young  soldier, 
whom  he  well  knew,  of  most  chivalrous  daring  and  impetuosity,  Joachim 
Murat,  to  secure  the  guns.  At  the  head  of  three  hundred  horse  he  was  al- 
most instantly  on  the  gallop,  and  arrived  at  Sablons  just  in  time  to  rescue 
the  artillery  from  a  smaller  band  of  the  insurrectionists,  who  had  also  been 
dispatched  to  secure  it.  The  guns  were  brought  to  the  Tuileries.  They 
were  promptly  ranged  to  sweep  all  the  avenues  leading  to  the  Tuileries. 
The  cavalry  and  a  part  of  the  infantry  were  placed  in  reserve  in  the  garden 
of  the  palace  and  in  the  Carrousel.  The  Convention  awoke  fully  to  a  sense 
of  its  danger  and  to  the  energy  of  its  commander  when  soldiers  brouglit 
eight  hundred  muskets  into  the  hall,  wnth  which  the  deputies  were  to  arm 
themselves  and  advance  to  battle  if  necessary.  Detachments  of  troops  were 
dispatched  to  seize  by  surprise  all  the  provisions  and  ammunition  in  Paris, 
and  convey  them  to  a  safe  depot  in  the  Tuileries.  A  hospital  for  the  wound- 
ed was  established  in  the  palace,  provided  with  necessaries  for  every  emerg- 
ency. The  troops  of  all  kinds  at  Napoleon's  disposal,  variously  estimated  at 
from  five  to  eight  thousand,  were  strongly  posted  in  the  leading  streets,  at 
the  bridges,  in  the  Place  Vendome,  and  in  the  Place  de  la  Edvolution.  A 
strong  detachment  was  sent  to  occupy  the  heights  of  Meudon,  Napoleon  in- 
tending to  retreat  there,  with  the  Convention,  in  case  of  defeat.  One  section 
in  Paris  had  voted  with  the  immense  majority  of  the  nation  for  the  decrees. 
Chests  of  arms  were  sent  to  that  section  to  arm  the  voters  in  defense  of  the 
laws.  A  detachment  was  sent  to  the  road  to  St.  Germain,  to  intercept  any 
cannon  from  being  brought  from  that  direction. 

All  this  was  accomplished  in  one  short  night,  the  4th  of  October,  Napo- 
leon seeming  to  infuse  his  own  energy  into  every  one  around  him.  In  the 
mean  time  the  sections,  though  by  no  means  aware  of  the  spirit  they  were 
doomed  to  encounter,  were  not  idle.  They  had  organized  a  kind  of  insur- 
rectionary government,  outlawed  the  committees  of  the  Convention,  and  had 
established  a  tribunal  to  punish  those  who  should  resist  its  sovereignty. 
Several  energetic  generals,  Jacobins,  and  also  Eoyalists,  creeping  from  their 
retreats,  offered  their  services  to  lead  the  attack  upon  the  Convention.    Gen- 


406  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XXXYIII. 

eral  Danican,  a  Royalist,  -who  bad  been  a  general  of  brigade  in  the  civil  war 
which  had  desolated  La  Vendee,  was  appointed  commander-in-chief  of  the 
forces  of  the  insurrection.  lie  had  the  National  Guard,  forty  thousand  strong, 
well  armed,  officered,  and  disciplined,  under  his  command.  The  morning 
of  the  5th  dawned. 

The  alarm-bells  were  now  ringing  and  the  gtntrale  beating.  The  armed 
hosts  of  the  sections  were  mustering  at  their  appointed  rendezvous  and  pre- 
paring to  march  upon  the  Convention.  The  members,  in  their  seats,  in  si- 
lence and  awe  awaited  the  assault,  upon  the  issue  of  which  their  lives  were 
suspended.  Napoleon,  pale,  solemn,  and  perfectly  calm,  was  waiting,  re- 
solved that  the  responsibility  of  the  first  blow  should  fall  upon  his  assail- 
ants, and  that  he  would  take  the  responsibility  of  the  second. 

Soon  the  enemy  were  seen  advancing  from  every  direction,  in  masses 
which  filled  the  narrow  streets  of  the  city.  With  music  and  banners  they 
marched  to  attack  the  besieged  on  every  side,  confident,  from  their  numbers, 
of  an  easy  victory.  They  did  not  believe  that  the  few  and  feeble  troops  of 
the  Convention  would  dare  to  resist  the  populace  of  Paris,  but  cherished  the 
delusion  that  a  few  shots  from  their  own  side  would  put  all  opposition  to 
flight.  Thus  unhesitatingly  they  came  within  sweep  of  the  grapeshot  with 
which  Napoleon  had  charged  his  guns.  The  troops  of  the  Convention  stood 
firm.  The  insurgents  opened  a  volley  of  bullets  upon  them.  It  was  the 
signal  for  an  instantaneous  discharge,  direct,  sanguinary,  merciless,  from  ev- 
ery battery.  A  storm  of  grape  swept  the  streets.  The  columns  of  the  as- 
sailants wavered,  turned,  fled,  and  still  the  storm  pursued  them.  One  of  the 
strongest  battalions  of  the  insurgents  had  posted  itself  on  the  steps  of  the 
Church  of  Saint  Roche,  where  it  occupied  a  commanding  position  for  firing 
upon  the  gunners  of  the  Convention.  Napoleon  directed  his  artillery  to  ad- 
vance upon  them  by  the  cul  de  sac  Dauphin,  and  immediately  threw  into 
their  crowded  ranks  a  storm  of  grapeshot.  The  insurgents  fought  manfully 
for  a  time,  but  were  soon  compelled  to  retreat,  leaving  the  steps  of  the  church 
covered  with  the  slain.  As  they  fled,  Napoleon  pushed  his  artillery  up  the 
street,  and,  wheeling  to  the  right  and  the  left,  swept  the  whole  length  of  the 
Rue  St.  Honors.  In  two  hours  the  victory  was  achieved,  forty  thousand  men 
were  vanquished  by  five  thousand,  the  streets  were  cleared,  and  Napoleon 
returned  in  calm  triumph  to  the  Tuileries.* 

It  is  interesting  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  Napoleon  in  his  domestic  life  at  this 
lime.  The  Duchess  of  Abrantes  writes,  "  My  parents  arrived  in  Paris  on 
the  4th  of  September.  Two  days  after  my  father  was  very  ID.  Bonaparte, 
apprised  by  my  brother,  came  immediately  to  see  us.  lie  appeared  to  be 
affected  by  the  state  of  my  father,  who,  though  in  great  pain,  insisted  on 
seeing  him.  He  came  every  day,  and  in  the  morning  he  sent  or  called  him- 
self to  inc^uire  how  he  had  passed  the  night.  I  can  not  recollect  his  conduct 
at  that  period  without  sincere  gratitude. 

♦  There  is  no  cxnpucration  in  the  foUowinp  nceount  of  the  rondition  of  Franee  at  this  time: 
"Since  France  had  become  Hejiuhlican  every  species  of  evil  had  accumulated  upon  its  devoted 
licad.  Famine,  a  total  cessation  of  commerce,  civil  war,  attended  by  its  usual  acconii)animents— 
conflapraticm,  robbery,  pillage,  ami  murder.  Justice  was  interrupted ;  the  sword  of  the  law  wield- 
ed by  ini(piity;  j)roperfy  sjioiiated  ;  confiscation  rendered  the  order  of  the  day;  the  scaflold  per- 
manently erected  ;  calumnious  denunciations  iield  in  the  liit;hcst  estimation.  Nothing  was  want- 
ing to  tlij  n<-'ncral  desolation."— //(a7.  ik  la  Co«i'.,  vol.  ii.,  j).  21."),  21G. 


1795.] 


'>* 


DISSOLUTION  OF  THE  CONVENTION. 


r/        JJ 


407 


THE   SECTIONS  AT   SAINT  EOCHE. 

"  He  informed  us  that  Paris  vras  in  sucli  a  state  as  must  necessarily  lead 
to  a  convulsion.  The  sections  were  in,  if  not  open,  at  least  almost  avowed 
insurrection.  The  section  Lepelletier,  which  was  ours,  was  the  most  turbu- 
lent, and,  in  fact,  the  most  to  be  dreaded.  Its  orators  did  not  scruple  to  de- 
liver the  most  incendiary  speeches.  They  asserted  that  the  power  of  the 
assembled  people  was  above  the  laws.  '  Matters  are  getting  from  bad  to 
worse,'  said  Bonaparte ;  '  the  counter-revolution  will  shortly  break  forth,  and 
it  will,  at  the  same  time,  become  the  source  of  disasters.' 


408  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXXYHI. 

"As  I  have  said,  he  came  every  day;  he  dined  with  us  and  passed  the 
evening  in  the  drawing-room,  talking  in  a  low  tone  beside  the  easy -chair  of 
my  mother,  who,  worn  out  with  fatigue,  dozed  for  a  few  moments  to  recruit 
her  strength,  for  she  never  quitted  my  father's  pillow.  I  recollect  that,  one 
evening,  my  father  being  very  ill,  my  mother  was  weeping  and  in  great 
tribulation.  It  was  ten  o'clock.  At  that  time  it  was  impossible  to  induce 
any  of  the  servants  of  the  hotel  to  go  out  after  nine.  Bonaparte  said  noth- 
ing. He  ran  down  stairs  and  posted  away  to  Duchannais,  whom  he  brought 
back  with  him  in  spite  of  his  objections.  The  weather  was  dreadful ;  the 
rain  poured  in  torrents.  Bonaparte  had  not  been  able  to  meet  with  a  hack- 
ney coach  to  go  to  M.  Duchannais ;  he  was  wet  through.  Yes,  indeed,  at 
that  period  Bonaparte  had  a  heart  susceptible  of  attachment. 

"  Meanwhile  we  became  more  and  more  alarmed  every  day  by  the  dan- 
gers which  manifested  themselves  around  us.  Paris  rung  with  the  tumult 
of  the  factions,  each  of  which  drew  the  sword  and  hoisted  its  standard. 
Against  the  Convention,  then  the  only  real  authority,  were  arrayed  the  sec- 
tions, which  for  some  days  past  again  declared  war  against  it.  Paris  resem- 
bled a  garrison  town.  At  night  we  heard  the  sentries  calling  to  and  an- 
swering one  another,  as  in  a  besieged  town.  The  strictest  search  was  made 
for  arms  and  ammunition. 

"  For  some  years  my  mother  had  been  subject  to  nervous  paroxysms.  At 
such  times  she  disliked  to  have  any  body  about  her.  On  reaching  the  draw- 
ing-room I  found  her  all  in  tears  and  in  one  of  the  most  violent  spasms. 
General  Bonaparte  was  with  her,  endeavoring  to  soothe  her.  He  told  me 
that  on  his  arrival  he  found  her  on  the  point  of  attacking  the  adjunct  of  the 
section  to  prevent  his  entering  my  father's  chamber.  '  I  should  be  glad  to 
spare  your  mother  such  scenes,'  said  he ;  '  I  have  not  much  influence,  never- 
theless I  will  go  myself  to  the  section.  I  will  see  the  president  if  possible 
and  settle  the  business  at  once.  Paris  is  all  on  fire,  especially  since  this 
morning.  It  is  necessary  to  be  very  cautious  in  every  thing  one  does  and 
in  all  one  says.  Your  brother  must  not  go  out  any  more.  Attend  to  all 
this,  for  your  mother  is  in  a  sad  state.' 

"  This  was  a  dreadful  night  for  my  father.  The  next  morning  the  gme- 
rale  was  beat.  The  streets  were  already  very  unsafe,  though  people  were 
still  passing  to  and  fro  in  Paris,  as  though  they  were  not  going  to  cut  one 
another's  throats  a  few  hours  afterward.  The  tumult  became  very  great  at 
dusk ;  the  theatres  were  nevertheless  open.  Indeed,  we  arc  a  nation  of  lu- 
natics I 

•'  On  the  morning  of  the  12th  Vcndemiaire  (October  4)  Bonaparte,  who 
had  called  according  to  custom,  appeared  to  be  lost  in  thought.  He  went 
out,  came  back,  went  out  again,  and  again  returned  when  we  were  at  our 
dessert.  'I  breakfasted  very  late,'  said  he,  'at  Bourrienne's.  They  talked 
politics  there  till  I  was  (juite  tired  of  the  subject.  I  will  try  to  learn  the 
news,  and  if  I  have  any  thing  interesting  I  will  come  and  tell  you.' 

"Wc  did  not  sec  him  again.  The  night  was  tumultuous,  especially  in 
our  section.  The  whole  Rue  de  la  Loi  was  bristling  with  bayonets.  Barri- 
cades were  already  set  up  in  our  streets.  On  the  morning  of  the  13th  (Oc- 
tober 5)  my  father  was  very  ill.     For  some  hours  we  flattered  oui'selves  that 


1795.]  DISSOLUTION  OF  THE  CONVENTION.  409 

matters  would  be  adjusted  between  the  Convention  and  the  rebels;  but 
about  half  past  four  the  firing  of  the  cannon  began.  The  effect  on  my  poor 
father  was  terrible.  He  gave  a.  piercing  shriek,  calhng  for  assistance,  and 
was  seized  with  the  most  violent  delirium.  All  the  scenes  of  the  Eevolution 
passed  in  review  before  him,  and  every  discharge  that  he  heard  was  a  blow 
struck  at  him  personally.  What  a  xlay  !  what  an  evening !  what  a  night ! 
Every  pane  of  glass  was  broken  in  pieces.  Toward  evening  the  section 
fell  back  upon  us.  The  fighting  was  continued  almost  under  our  window, 
but  when  it  had  come  to  St,  Eoche  we  imagined  that  the  house  was  tumbling 
about  our  ears, 

"  My  father  was  in  the  agonies  of  death ;  he  shouted,  he  wept.  Never, 
no,  never,  shall  I  sufier  what  I  did  during  that  terrible  night.  Next  day 
tranquillity  was  restored,  we  were  told,  in  Paris.  I  can  scarcely  give  any 
account  of  the  14th.  Toward  evening  Bonaparte  came  for  a  moment ;  he 
found  me  dissolved  in  tears.  When  he  learned  the  cause  his  cheerful  and 
open  countenance  suddenly  changed.  My  mother  entered  at  that  moment. 
She  knew  no  more  than  I  how  important  a  part  Bonaparte  had  played  on 
that  great  day,  '  Oh !'  said  my  mother,  '  they  have  killed  my  husband. 
You,  Napoleon,  can  feel  for  my  distress.  Do  you  recollect  that  on  the  first 
Prairial,  when  you  came  to  sup  with  me,  you  told  me  that  you  had  just  pre- 
vented Barras  from  bombarding  Paris  ?  Do  you  recollect  it  ?  For  my  part 
I  have  not  forgotten  it.' 

"  Many  persons  have  alleged  that  Napoleon  always  regretted  that  day. 
Be  that  as  it  may,  he  was  always  exceedingly  kind  to  my  mother  in  these 
moments  of  afSiction,  though  himself  in  circumstances  that  could  not  but 
outweigh  all  other  interests.     He  was  like  a  son — like  a  brother,'"* 

The  Convention  treated  the  insurrectionists,  who  had  thus  been  so  severe- 
ly punished,  with  the  utmost  clemency.f  Napoleon  received  the  thanks 
of  the  Convention  and  a  brilliant  reception.  The  Convention  united  Bel- 
gium with  France;  decreed  that  the  punishment  of  death  should  be  abolish- 
ed as  soon  as  a  general  peace  with  Europe  could  be  effected ;  changed  the 
name  of  the  Place  of  the  Eevolution  to  the  Place  of  Concord ;  pronounced 
an  amnesty  for  all  acts  connected  with  the  Eevolution,  excepting  one  person 
implicated  in  the  last  revolt;  and  then,  on  the  26th  of  October,  1795,  the 
President  of  the  Convention  pronounced  these  words, 

"  The  National  Convention  declares  that  its  mission  is  accomplished,  and 
its  session  is  closed." 

With  one  united  shout — The  Republic  forever  ! — the  deputies  left  the  hall 
and  dispersed  to  their  homes. 

To  the  States-General  fell  the  task,  after  a  terrific  struggle  with  king  and 
nobles,  to  create  the  Constituent  Assembly,  a  gi'eat  national  congress,  whose 
function  it  was  to  moderate  the  despotism  of  the  throne  by  conferring  upon 

*  Memoirs  of  the  Duchesse  d'Abrantes,  p.  118. 

t  "  Aftei-  this  memorable  conflict,  when  Bonaparte  had  been  publicly  received  with  enthusiasm 
by  the  Convention,  who  declared  tliat  he  and  Barras  deseiTed  well  of  their  country,  a  great 
cliange  took  place  in  him,  and  the  chanj^e  in  regard  to  attention  to  his  person  was  not  the  least 
remarkable.  He  now  never  went  out  but  in  a  handsome  carriage,  and  he  lived  in  a  very  respect- 
able house,  Rue  des  Capucines.  In  short,  he  had  become  an  important,  a  nccessaiy  i^crsonage, 
and  all  without  noise,  as  if  by  magic." — Duchess  of  Ahrantcs. 


410  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXXVIII. 

a  nation  of  twenty -five  millions  of  people,  after  ages  of  oppression,  constitu- 
tional liberty.  The  Constituent  Assembly,  whicli  succeeded  the  States- 
General,  abolished  those  old  institutions  of  feudal  servitude  which  had  be- 
come utterly  unendurable,  and  established  a  constitutional  monarchy,  taking 
as  a  model,  in  the  main,  the  British  Constitution.  The  Legislative  Assem- 
bly then  took  the  place  of  the  Constituent,  to  enact  laws  in  harmony  with 
this  Constitution.  It  soon,  however,  found  that  the  king  was  in  league  with 
despotic  Europe  to  overthrow  constitutional  liberty  and  restore  the  old  des- 
2)otism.  It  consequently  suspended  the  king,  and  the  Constitution  with 
which  his  power  was  inseparably  interwoven,  and  dissolved  itself"'^  The 
National  Convention,  which  succeeded,  commenced  its  deliberations  on  the 
21st  of  September,  1792. 

*'  The  Convention,"  says  Thiers,  "  found  a  dethroned  king,  an  annulled 
Constitution,  an  administration  entirely  destroyed,  a  paper  money  discredit- 
ed, old  skeletons  of  regiments  worn  out  and  empty.  Thus  it  was  not  lib- 
erty that  it  had  to  proclaim  in  presence  of  an  enfeebled  and  despised  throne, 
it  was  hberty  that  it  had  to  defend  against  all  Europe — a  very  difficult  task. 
TVithout  being  for  a  moment  daunted,  it  proclaimed  the  Eepublic  in  the 
face  of  the  hostile  armies ;  it  then  sacrificed  the  king,  to  cut  off  all  retreat 
from  itself;  it  subsequently  took  all  the  powers  into  its  own  hands,  and 
constituted  itself  a  dictatorship.  Voices  were  raised  in  its  bosom  which 
talked  oi  humanity^  when  it  wished  to  hear  of  nothing  but  energy  ;  it  stifled 
them.  This  dictatorship,  which  the  necessity  of  the  general  preservation 
had  obliged  it  to  arrogate  to  itself  over  all  France,  twelve  of  its  members 
soon  arrogated  to  themselves  over  it,  for  the  same  reason,  and  on  account 
of  the  same  necessity.  From  the  Alps  to  the  sea,  from  the  Pyrenees  to  the 
Rhine,  these  twelve  dictators  seized  upon  all,  both  men  and  things,  and 
commenced  the  greatest  and  the  most  awful  struggle  with  the  nations  of 
Europe  ever  recorded  in  history.  They  spilt  torrents  of  blood,  till,  having 
become  useless  from  victory,  and  odious  by  the  abuse  of  strength,  they  fell. 

"  The  Convention  then  took  the  dictatorship  again  into  its  own  hands, 
and  began,  by  degrees,  to  relax  the  springs  of  that  terrible  administration. 
Rendered  confident  by  victory,  it  listened  to  humanity,  and  indulged  its 
spirit  of  regeneration.  It  aimed  at  every  thing  good  and  great,  and  pur- 
sued this  purpose  for  a  year;  but  the  parties  crushed  under  its  pitiless 
authority  revived  under  its  clemency.  Two  factions,  in  which  were  blend- 
ed, under  infinite  variety  of  shades,  the  friends  and  the  foes  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, attacked  it  by  turns.  It  vanquished  the  one  and  the  other,  and,  till 
the  last  day,  showed  itself  heroic  amid  dangers.  Lastly,  it  framed  a  Re- 
publican Constitution,  and,  after  a  struggle  of  three  years  with  Europe,  with 
the  fiictions,  with  itself,  mutilated  and  bleeding,  it  dissolved  itself,  and  trans- 
mitted the  government  of  France  to  the  Directory."! 

*  The  States-General  held  its  session  from  ^lay  G,  1789. 
t  Tiiicrs,  Fr.  Rev.,  vol.  iii.,  p.  303. 


1795.]  THE  DIRECTORY.  411 


CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

THE  DIRECTORY. 

Constitution  of  the  Directory. — Distracted  State  of  Public  Affairs. — New  Expedition  to  LaVen- 
de'e. — Death  of  the  Dauphin. — Release  of  the  Princess. — Pacification  of  La  Vendee. — Riots 
in  London. — Execution  of  Charette. — Napoleon  takes  command  of  the  Army  of  Italy. — The 
first  Proclamation. — Triumphs  in  Italy. — Letter  of  General  Hoche. — Peace  with  Spain. — Es- 
tablishment of  the  Cispadane  Republic. — Negotiations  with  England. — Contemplated  Invasion 
of  Ireland. — Memorials  of  Wolfe  Tone. — Deplorable  State  of  Public  Affairs. — Description  of 
Napoleon. — Composition  of  the  Directoiy. 

The  government  of  the  Directory  went  into  operation  on  the  27th  of  Oc- 
tober, 1795.  The  two  legislative  bodies,  the  Council  of  the  Ancients  and 
the  Council  of  the  Five  Hundred,  met  and  chose  for  the  five  directors  Lare- 
veillere  Lepeaux,  Le  Tourneur,  Eewbel,  Carnot,  and  Barras.  "Among 
these,"  says  Thiers,  "there  was  not  a  man  of  genius,  nor  even  any  man  of 
high  reputation,  excepting  Carnot.  But  what  was  to  be  done  at  the  end  of 
a  sanguinary  revolution  which,  in  a  few  years,  had  devoured  several  genera- 
tions of  men  of  genius  of  every  description  ?  In  the  Assemblies  there  was 
not  left  one  extraordinary  orator ;  in  diplomacy  there  remained  not  one  cele- 
brated negotiator."*  The  state  of  public  affairs  at  this  time  was  deplorable 
in  the  extreme.  Innumerable  factions  disturbed  the  state.  A  very  sanguin- 
ary war  was  raging  around  the  frontiers.  The  embers  of  civil  war  were  still 
smoldering  and  frequently  bursting  out  into  flame.  Three  powerful  parties 
were  struggling  almost  with  the  energies  of  despair  for  the  supremacy — the 
old  Eoyalists,  the  Thermidorians  or  moderate  Republicans,  and  the  Jaco- 
bins, who  wielded,  as  the  great  instrument  of  terror,  the  energies  of  the  Pa- 
risian mob.  Many  of  the  most  intelligent  men  already  foresaw  that  there 
was  no  hope  for  distracted  France  but  in  the  action  of  some  mighty  mind 
which  could  mould  the  tumultuous  elements  and  evolve  order  from  the  con- 
fusion.f 

The  British  government,  undismayed  by  the  disaster  of  Quiberon,  now 
sent  another  expedition  to  the  shores  of  La  Vendee  to  rouse  the  Royalists 
to  insurrection.  The  expedition  consisted  of  two  thousand  English  in- 
fantry, five  hundred  horse,  several  regiments  of  French  emigrants,  a  great 
number  of  ofl&cers  to  take  command  of  the  marshaled  peasantry,  and  arms, 
ammunition,  provisions,  clothing,  and  gold  in  abundance.  Should  this  ex- 
pedition successfully  land  and  rally  around  it  the  Royalist  insurgents  in 
promising  numbers,  it  was  immediately  to  be  followed  by  another  still  more 

*  Thiers,  History  of  the  French  Revolution,  vol.  iii.,  p.  338. 

t  "France,  exliausted  by  every  species  of  suffering,  had  lost  even  the  power  of  uttering  a  com- 
plaint ;  and  we  had  all  arrived  at  such  a  point  of  depression  that  death,  if  unattended  by  pain, 
would  have  been  wished  for  even  by  the  youngest  human  being,  because  it  offered  the  prospect  of 
repose,  and  every  one  panted  for  that  blessing  at  any  price.  But  it  was  ordained  that  many  days, 
months,  and  years  should  still  continue  in  that  state  of  horrible  agitation,  the  true  foretaste  of  the 
torments  of  helV— Memoirs  of  the  Duchess  of  Abr antes,  p.  286. 


412  TUE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [Chap.  XXXIX. 

powerful.  The  Count  d'Artois  (Charles  X.)  was  placed  in  command  of  this 
force.  Charette,  a  very  intrepid  Royalist  chieftain,  had  raised  some  ten 
thousand  peasants,  and  was  in  command  of  the  coast  to  welcome  the  invad- 
ers. But  General  Iloche  fell  upon  the  insurgent  Vendeeans  and  scattered 
them;  and  the  English  fleet,  after  hovering  for  some  time  along  the  coast, 
being  unable  to  effect  a  landing,  and  disappointed  in  the  support  they  hoped 
to  have  met,  abandoned  the  enterprise  and  returned  to  Englani.* 

While  the  coast  of  France  was  thus  threatened  the  Allies  on  the  Rhine 
gained  some  very  decisive  victories,  and  drove  the  routed  Republicans  be- 
fore them.  There  was  no  money  in  the  treasury  of  the  Director}'.  The 
paper  money,  which  had  been  freely  issued,  had  become  almost  worthless, 
and  the  armies  were  now  in  destitution  and  rags.  Such  were  the  difficulties 
with  which  the  new  government  had  to  grapple.f 

On  the  8th  of  June  the  dauphin  died  in  the  Temple.  AVhile  he  lived  he 
was  considered  by  the  Royalists  the  legitimate  King  of  France,  under  the 
title  of  Louis  XVII.  Upon  his  death  the  emigrants  declared  the  Count  of 
Provence  king,  and  he  assumed  the  title  of  Louis  XVIII.  It  will  be  re- 
membered that  the  Convention  sent  some  deputies  to  arrest  Dumouriez,  and 
that  he  seized  these  commissioners  and  handed  them  over  to  the  Austrians 
as  hostages.  The  Directory  now  exchanged  the  young  princess,  who  still 
survived  in  woeful  captivity,  for  these  commissioners  and  a  few  other  distin- 
guished prisoners  held  by  the  Austrians.  It  was  the  19th  of  December 
when  this  unhappy  child  left  her  cell,  where  she  had  endured  agonies  such 
as  few  on  earth  had  known,  to  be  conveyed  back  to  the  palaces  of  her  ma- 
ternal ancestors. 

The  guns  of  Napoleon,  quelling  the  insurgent  sections,  had  established 
the  government  of  the  Directory.  To  secure  Paris  and  France  from  similar 
scenes  of  violence,  an  imposing  force  was  organized,  called  the  Army  of  the 
Interior,  and  Napoleon  was  placed  in  command.  As  by  magic,  under  his 
efficient  command,  this  body  was  organized  into  the  highest  discipline  and 
efficiency,  and,  overawing  the  discontented,  maintained  public  order.  A 
formidable  camp  of  these  troops  w\as  established  at  Crenelle.     But  for  Na- 

*  A  Republican  does  not  view  this  endeavor  on  the  part  of  the  British  government  to  foment 
civil  war  in  France  as  a  Royalist  views  it.  "  It  is  painful,"  says  Mr.  Alison,  "to  reflect  how  dif- 
forent  miKlit  have  been  the  issue  of  the  camjjaign  had  Great  Britain  really  put  forth  its  strength 
in  the  contest,  and,  instead  of  landing  a  few  thousand  men  on  a  coast  bristling  with  bayonets, 
sc-nt  thirty  thousand  men  to  make  head  against  the  Republicans  till  the  Royalist  forces  were  so 
organized  as  to  be  able  to  take  the  field  with  regular  troops."  It  was  this  persistent  determina- 
tion, on  the  part  of  the  British  government  and  allied  Europe,  that  France  should  not  enjoy  free 
institutions,  which  led  to  nearly  all  the  sanguinary  scenes  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  which, 
for  nearly  a  ipiarter  of  a  century,  made  Europe  red  with  blood. 

t  "All  these  forces  [of  the  Republic]  were  in  a  state  of  extreme  pcnuiy,  and  totally  destitute 
of  the  eijuipments  necessary  for  the  carrying  on  of  a  campaign.  They  had  neither  caissons,  nor 
horses,  nor  magazines.  The  soldiors  were  almost  naked  and  the  generals,  even,  frequently  in  want 
of  tlie  necessaries  of  life.  Multitudes  had  taken  advantage  of  the  relaxation  of  authority  follow- 
ing the  fall  of  Robespierre  to  desert  and  return  to  their  homes,  and  the  government,  s<i  far  from 
l>eing  able  to  bring  them  liack  to  their  colors,  were  not  even  able  to  levy  conscripts  in  the  interior 
Xo  supply  their  jilaee."— /l/Z.^n,  vol.  i.,  p.  3G9. 

I'aper  money  imd  been  issued  to  the  almost  incredible  amount  of  2,000,000,000  dollars,  or 
10,()()(),oo<),0()()  francs.  This  paper  money  had  so  depreciated  that  a  pound  of  sugar  cost  eighty 
dollars  in  jiajjcr  money. 


1796.]  THE  DIRECTORY.  413 

poleon  the  Directory  could  not  have  come  into  being.  But  for  Kapoleon  it 
could  not  have  lived  a  year,  struggling  against  the  conspiracies  which  ever 
crowded  it.*  General  Hoche,  operating  with  singular  wisdom  and  human- 
ity, succeeded  in  the  pacification  of  the  inhabitants  of  La  Yendee.  They 
surrendered  their  arms,  and  peace  was  restored  to  that  distracted  region. 
Still  William  Pitt  clamored  for  war  against  the  French  Eepublic.  The  En- 
ghsh  2^eople  were  indignant  at  these  unjust  assaults  against  a  neighboring 
nation  struggling  to  throw  off  the  chains  of  intolerable  servitude,  and  de- 
manded peace  with  France.  The  liberty-loving  Englishmen  met  in  immense 
gatherings  in  the  open  air,  and  denounced  the  war  system  in  the  most  bold 
and  decisive  resolves.  As  the  king  rode  to  Parliament  the  populace  pur- 
sued him,  pelted  his  carriage  with  stones,  broke  the  windows,  and  it  was  as- 
serted that  an  air-gun  was  fired  at  him.  Pitt,  riding  on  horseback,  was  rec- 
ognized by  the  populace,  and  with  difficulty  escaped  from  their  hands  cov- 
ered with  mud.  Fox  and  Sheridan  in  Parliament  were  loud  and  eloquent 
in  the  denunciation  of  the  war  measures  of  the  ministry.f  Pitt  endeavored 
to  defend  himself  against  the  assaults  of  the  opposition  by  saying  that  En- 
glish blood  had  not  been  shed.  "  True,"  replied  Sheridan,  "  English  blood 
has  not  been  shed,  but  English  honor  has  oozed  from  every  pore." 

The  Allies,  exhilarated  by  their  successes  on  the  Rhine,  prepared  to  press 
the  war  with  new  vigor.  Pitt  obtained  from  Parliament  a  new  loan  of 
thirty-five  millions  of  dollars.  General  Bonaparte  was  promoted  from  the 
command  of  the  Army  of  the  Interior  to  that  of  the  Army  of  Italy.  He  im- 
mediately entered  upon  that  Italian  campaign  which  gave  him  renown 
throughout  the  world. 

Though  the  Yendeeans  had  surrendered  their  arms  and  were  rejoicing  in 
the  enjoyment  of  peace,  Charette  wandered  about  the  country,  refusing  all 
overtures  at  reconciliation,  and  striving,  with  great  energy,  to  rouse  new 
forces  of  insurrection.  The  entire  pacification  of  La  Yendee  now  depended 
upon  the  capture  of  Charette.  Y^ith  almost  unparalleled  energy  and  brav- 
ery he  succeeded  for  several  months  in  eluding  his  foes.  At  last,  on  the 
21th  of  March,  1796,  he  fell  into  an  ambuscade.  He  was  armed  to  the  teeth, 
and  fought  with  the  ferocity  of  a  tiger  at  bay.  He  received  several  sabre- 
blows  before  he  fell  and  was  secured.  At  his  examination  he  with  dignity 
averred  his  detestation  of  republicanism  and  his  devotion  to  roj-alty.  He 
had  deluged  the  land  with  the  blood  of  civil  war,  and,  as  a  traitor,  was 
doomed  to  die.  On  the  30th  of  March  he  was  led  out  to  execution,  A 
platoon  of  soldiers  was  drawn  up  but  a  few  paces  before  him.  He  stood 
erect,  with  his  eyes  unbandaged,  and,  apparently  without  the  tremor  of  a 
nerve,  gave  the  command  to  fire.  He  fell  dead,  pierced  by  many  bullets. 
He  had  displayed  marvelous  heroism  in  a  bad  cause.  Refusing  to  submit 
to  laws  established  by  the  overwhelming  majority  of  his  countrymen,  he 
was  deluging  the  land  in  blood  in  the  endeavor  to  rivet  again  upon  France 
the  chains  of  the  most  intolerable  despotism.  The  Royalists  all  over  Eu- 
rope mourned  his  death.  But  France  rejoiced,  for  the  fall  of  Charette  ter- 
minated the  civil  war. 

One  hundred  thousand  men  had  been  under  the  command  of  General 

*  Thiers,  Hist.  French  Rev.,  vol.  iii.,  p.  353.  t  Ibid.,  vol.  iii.,  p.  3G4. 


4U 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXXIX. 


LA  CHABET7B  TAKEN  PBIBONEB. 


Hoclie  in  tlie  strife  of  La  Vendee.  These  were  now  at  liberty  to  march  to 
repel  the  foreign  invader.  Two  powerful  armies,  of  eighty  thousand  each, 
were  collected  on  the  Ehine.  But  they  could  not  hold  their  ground  against 
tlie  outnumbering  Austrians.  In  one  of  these  engagements  the  distinguished 
young  general  Marceau  was  killed.  He  was  struck  by  a  ball  fired  by  a 
Tyrolean  marksman,  and  fell  from  his  horse  mortally  wounded.  His  sol- 
diers, on  the  rapid  retreat,  were  unable  to  rescue  him,  and  he  was  left  in  his 
blood  to  the  humanity  of  the  victors.  The  Austrians  generously  did  every 
thing  in  their  power  for  his  relief,  but  he  died,  three  days  after,  in  the 
twenty-seventh  year  of  his  age. 

About  thirty  thousand  French  soldiers,  in  rags,  destitute  of  the  munitions 
of  war,  and  almost  famished,  were  ineffectually  struggling  against  their  foes 
on  the  southern  slopes  of  the  Apennines.  Napoleon  was  placed  in  com- 
mand of  these  starving  troops,  but  the  government  was  unable  to  supply 
him  with  any  funds  for  the  prosecution  of  the  war.  On  the  27th  of  March 
he  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  these  enfeebled  and  discouraged  battalions. 
Young  generals,  who  subsequently  obtained  great  renown — Angereau,  Mas- 
sena,  Laharpe,  Serrurier,  and  Bcrthier — composed  the  officers  of  his  staff.  The 
levy  en  masse  had  filled  the  ranks  with  young  men  from  good  families,  well 
informed,  distinctly  understanding  the  nature  of  the  conflict,  detesting  the  old 
feudal  despotism  which  allied  Europe  was  striving  to  impose  upon  them 
anew,  and  enthusiastically  devoted  to  the  principles  of  liberty  and  equal 
rights  which  the  Revolution  was  endeavoring  to  implant.  Though  most  of 
them  were  young,  they  had  many  of  them  spent  years  in  the  field,  had  seen 
many  bloody  battles,  and,  inured  to  the  hardships  of  war,  were  veteran 
soldiers.    Sixty  thousand  Piedmontcse  and  Austrians,  under  Colli  and  Beau- 


1796.] 


THE  DIEECTORY. 


415 


DEATU  OF   fal-NEKAI    MAEOliAU 


lieu,  crowded  tlie  nortliem  slopes  and  the  crest  of  the  mountains,  endeavoring 
to  force  their  way  through  the  defiles  upon  France.  Naj^oleon's  first  words 
to  his  troops  roused  them  as  with  electric  fire. 

"Soldiers,"  said  he,  "you  are  ill  fed,  almost  naked.  The  government 
owes  you  much,  but  can  do  nothing  for  you.  Your  patience,  your  courage, 
do  you  honor,  but  procure  you  neither  glory  nor  advantage.  I  am  about 
to  lead  you  into  the  most  fertile  plains  in  the  world.  You  will  there  find 
large  cities,  rich  provinces;  you  will  there  find  honor,  glory,  and  wealth. 
Soldiers  of  Italy,  will  your  courage  fail  you  ?" 

On  the  12th  of  April  his  troops  were  in  motion.  A  series  of  desperate 
battles  and  of  resplendent  victories  ensued.  At  the  close  of  two  weeks 
Napoleon  issued  the  following  proclamation : 

"  Soldiers,  in  a  fortnight  you  have  gained  six  victories,  taken  twenty -one 
pairs  of  colors,  fifty -five  pieces  of  cannon,  several  fortresses,  and  conquered 
the  richest  part  of  Piedmont.  You  have  made  fifteen  thousand  prisoners, 
and  killed  or  wounded  more  than  ten  thousand  men.  You  had  hitherto 
been  fighting  for  barren  rocks,  rendered  glorious  by  your  courage,  but  use- 
less to  the  country.  You  now  rival,  by  your  services,  the  army  of  Holland 
and  the  Ehine.  Destitute  of  every  thing,  you  have  supplied  all  your  wants. 
You  have  gained  battles  without  cannon,  crossed  rivers  without  bridges, 
made  forced  marches  without  shoes,  bivouacked  without  brandy  and  often 
without  bread.  The  Republican  phalanxes,  the  soldiers  of  liberty  alone, 
could  have  endured  what  you  have  endured.  Thanks  be  to  you  for  it,  sol- 
diers. Your  grateful  country  will  owe  to  you  its  prosperity ;  and  if  your 
conquest  at  Toulon  foreboded  the  glorious  campaign  of  1793,  your  present 


416  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [Ch.U'.  XXXIX. 

victories  forbode  one  still  more  glorious.  The  two  armies  which  so  lately 
attacked  you  boldly,  are  fleeing  affrighted  before  you.  The  perverse  men 
who  laughed  at  your  distress,  and  rejoiced  in  thought  at  the  triumph  of 
your  enemies,  are  confounded  and  trembling. 

"But,  soldiers,  you  have  done  nothing,  since  more  remains  to  be  done. 
Neither  Turin  nor  Milan  is  yours.  The  ashes  of  the  conquerors  of  Tarquiu 
are  still  trampled  upon  by  the  murderers  of  Basseville."* 

Napoleon  now  summoned  all  his  energies  to  drive  the  Austrians  out  of 
Italy.  In  two  months  the  work  was  done ;  and  Paris,  France,  Europe  was 
electrified  by  the  narrative  of  deeds  of  daring  and  success,  such  as  war  had 
never  recorded  before.  In  all  the  towns  and  cities  of  Italy  the  French 
armies  were  received  as  dehverers,  for  the  subjugated  Italians  were  eager  to 
throw  off  the  hateful  yoke  of  Austrian  despotism.  Napoleon,  having  un- 
bounded confidence  in  himself,  and  but  very  little  respect  for  the  weak  men 
who  composed  the  Directory,  took  all  matters  of  diplomacy,  as  well  as  war, 
into  his  own  hands,  and,  sustained  by  the  enthusiasm  of  his  soldiers,  settled 
the  affairs  of  Italy  according  to  his  own  views  of  expediency. 

The  Royalists,  hoping  for  the  overthrow  of  the  Republic  and  for  the  re- 
turn of  Louis  XVIII.,  were  exceedingly  chagrined  by  these  victories.  They 
left  no  means  of  calumny  untried  to  sully  the  name  of  Napoleon.  Europe 
was  filled  with  falsehoods  respecting  him,  and  reports  were  circulated  that 
General  Hoche  was  to  be  sent  from  Paris  to  arrest  him  in  the  midst  of  his 
army.  These  rumors  assumed  such  importance  that  the  government  wrote 
a  letter  to  Napoleon  contradicting  them ;  and  General  Hoche,  with  the 
magnanimity  of  a  man  incapable  of  jealousy,  over  his  own  name  published 
a  letter  expressing  his  admiration  of  the  commander  of  the  Army  of  Italy. 

"  Men,"  he  wrote,  "  who,  concealed  or  unknown  during  the  first  years  of 
the  foundation  of  the  Republic,  now  think  only  of  seeking  the  means  of  de- 
stroying it,  and  speak  of  it  merely  to  slander  its  firmest  supporters,  have,  for 
some  days  past,  been  spreading  reports  most  injurious  to  the  armies,  and  to 
one  of  the  general  officers  who  commanded  them.  Can  they,  then,  no  longer 
attain  their  object  by  corresponding  openly  with  the  horde  of  conspirators 
resident  at  Ilamburg?  Must  they,  in  order  to  gain  the  patronage  of  the 
masters  whom  they  are  desirous  of  giving  to  France,  vilify  the  leaders  of  the 
armies?  Why  is  Bonaparte,  then,  the  object  of  the  wrath  of  these  gentry? 
Is  it  because  he  beat  themselves  and  their  friends  in  Vendemiaire  ?t  Is  it 
because  he  is  dissolving  the  armies  of  kings,  and  furnishing  the  Republic 
with  the  means  of  bringing  this  honorable  war  to  a  glorious  conclusion? 
Ah !  brave  young  man,  where  is  the  Republican  soldier  whose  heart  does 
not  burn  with  the  desire  to  imitate  thee  ?  Courage,  Bonaparte !  lead  our  vic- 
torious armies  to  Naples,  to  Vienna ;  reply  to  thy  personal  enemies  by  hum- 
bling kings,  by  shedding  fresh  lustre  over  our  armies,  and  leave  to  us  the 
task  of  upholding  thy  glory." 

Still  the  Royalists  were  busy  with  incessant  plots  and  intrigues  for  the 
overthrow  of  the  government.  The  treasury  was  utterly  bankrupt,  paper 
money,  almost  utterly  worthless,  flooded  the  land,  and  the"  finances  were  in  a 

*  M.  ■nnsscvillc,  an  envoy  of  the  French  Rt>public  at  Rome,  was  attacked  by  n  mob  and  cruelly 
murdered.  |  Quelling  the  insurgent  sections. 


1796.]  THE  DIRECTORY.  417 

state  of  inextricable  embarrassment.  The  Jacobins  and  the  Eoyalists  were 
equally  eager  to  demolish  the  Directory  by  any  conceivable  measures  of 
treason  and  violence.  Never  was  a  nation  in  a  more  deplorable  state,  har- 
assed by  a  foreign  war  which  demanded  all  its  energies,  and  torn  by  domes- 
tic dissensions  which  no  human  wisdom  seemed  capable  of  healing. 

The  Jacobins  adopted  even  the  desperate  measure  to  feign  a  Eoyalist  in- 
surrection ;  to  scatter  white  cockades,  the  emblem  of  Bourbon  power ;  to 
shout  Vive  le  Roi!  and  to  discharge  musketry  and  throw  petards  into  the 
streets,  that  the  people,  alarmed  by  the  peril  of  Bourbon  restoration,  might 
throw  themselves  into  the  arms  of  the  Jacobins  for  protection.*  A  mpb  of 
nearly  a  thousand  most  determined  men  marched,  in  the  night  of  the  10th 
of  September,  upon  the  camp  at  Grenelle,  hoping  to  fraternize  with  the  sol- 
diers in  this  treasonable  endeavor  to  overthrow  the  government.  Several 
hundreds  fell  dead  or  wounded  in  this  frantic  attempt. 


The  Directory  now  attempted  to  enter  into  peaceful  relations  with  other 
powers,  and  effected  a  treaty  of  alliance,  offensive  and  defensi\^,  with  Spain. 
Envoys  were  also  sent  to  the  Ottoman  Porte  and  to  Venice  for  the  same  pur- 
pose. Piedmont  had  sued  for  peace  and  obtained  it.  The  Italians  of  Upper 
Italy,  exulting  in  their  emancipation  from  the  Austrians,  under  the  protec- 
tion of  Napoleon  estabhshed  the  Cispadane  Eepublic.  Without  the  support 
of  his  strong  arm  they  could  not  for  a  day  resist  the  encroachments  of  the 
surrounding  despotisms.  The  first  National  Assembly  of  this  infant  repub- 
lic met  at  Modena,  October  16, 1796.  The  people  were  electrified  with  de- 
light at  this  unexpected  achievement  of  freedom.  The  Assembly  sent  an 
address  to  Napoleon,  informing  him  of  the  principles  of  their  new  govern- 
ment. 

"  Never  forget,"  said  Napoleon,  in  his  reply,  "  that  laws  are  mere  nullities 
without  the  force  necessary  to  support  them.  Attend  to  your  military  or- 
ganization, which  you  have  the  means  of  placing  on  a  respectable  footing. 

*  Thiers's  French  Revolution,  vol.  iv.,  p.  10. 

Dd 


418  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXXIX. 

You  will  then  be  more  fortunate  than  the  people  pf  France,  for  you  will  ar- 
rive at  liberty  without  passing  through  the  ordeal  of  revolution." 

The  Directory  had  for  some  time  been  attempting  to  effect  peace  with  En- 
gland. On  the  18th  of  December  the  British  government  stated  on  what 
terms  it  would  consent  to  sheathe  the  sword.  M.  Thiers  expresses  the  feel- 
ings of  France  in  reference  to  this  offer  in  the  following  terms : 

"  Thus  France,  having  been  iniquitously  forced  into  war,  after  she  had  ex- 
pended enormous  sums,  and  from  which  she  had  come  off  victorious — France 
was  not  to  gain  a  single  province,  while  the  northern  powers  had  just  di- 
vided a  kingdom  between  them  (Poland),  and  England  had  recently  made 
immense  acquisitions  in  India.  France,  who  still  occupied  the  hne  of  the 
Khine,  and  who  was  mistress  of  Italy,  was  to  evacuate  the  Rhine  and  Italy 
at  the  bare  summons  of  England !  Such  conditions  were  absurd  and  inad- 
missible. The  very  proposal  of  them  was  an  insult,  and  they  could  not  be 
listened  to,"* 

To  conquer  a  peace,  the  Directory  now  meditated  a  direct  attack  upon  En- 
gland. The  Catholic  Irish,  over  three  milhons  in  number,  hating  implaca- 
bly their  English  conquerors,  were  ardent  to  rise,  under  the  guarantee  of 
France,  and  estabUsh  a  republican  government.  They  had  sent  secret  agents 
to  Paris  to  confer  with  the  Directory.  Wolfe  Tone,  one  of  the  leaders  of  the 
Irish  revolutionists,  addressed  memorials  to  the  French  Directory  solicit- 
ing aid. 

"  The  CathoHcs  of  Ireland,"  said  he,  "  are  3,150,000,  all  trained  from  their 
infancy  in  an  hereditary  hatred  and  abhorrence  of  the  English  name.  For 
these  five  years  they  have  fixed  their  eyes  most  earnestly  on  France,  whom 
they  look  upon,  with  great  justice,  as  fighting  their  battles,  as  well  as  that 
of  all  mankind  who  are  oppressed.  Of  this  class  I  will  stake  my  head  there 
are  500,000  who  would  fly  to  the  standard  of  the  Republic  if  they  saw  it 
once  displayed  in  the  cause  of  hberty  and  their  country. 

"  The  Republic  may  also  rely  with  confidence  on  the  support  of  the  Dis- 
senters, actuated  by  reason  and  reflection,  as  well  as  the  Catholics  impelled 
by  misery  and  inflamed  by  detestation  of  the  English  name.  In  the  year 
1791  the  Dissenters  of  Belfast  first  formed  the  Club  of  United  Irishmen,  so 
called  because  in  that  club,  for  the  first  time,  Dissenters  and  Catholics  were 
seen  together  in  harmony  and  union.  Corresponding  clubs  were  rapidly 
formed,  the  object  of  which  was  to  subvert  the  tyranny  of  England,  establish 
the  independence  of  Ireland,  and  frame  a  free  republic  on  the  broad  basis  of 
liberty  and  equality. 

"  The  Catholics  also  have  an  organization,  commencing  about  the  same  time 
with  the  clubs  last  mentioned,  but  composed  of  Catholics  only.  In  June 
la^t  it  embraced  the  whole  peasantry  of  the  provinces  of  Ulster,  Leinster, 
and  Connaught,  three  fourths  of  the  nation,  and  I  have  little  doubt  that  it 
has  since  extended  into  Munstcr,  the  remaining  province.  The  eyes  of  this 
whole  body,  which  may  be  said,  almost  without  a  figure,  to  be  the  people  of 
Ireland,  arc  turned  with  the  most  anxious  expectation  to  France  for  assist- 
ance and  sui)})ort.  The  oath  of  their  union  recites  that  they  will  be  fiuthful 
to  the  united  nations  of  France  and  Ircland."f 

*  Tliiors's  French  Revolution,  vol.  iv.,  p.  GG. 

t  Wolfo  Tone's  First  Memorial  to  the  French  Directorj-,  vol.  ii.,  p.  187. 


1796.]  THE  DIRECTORY.  419 

An  expedition  to  Ireland  was  secretly  resolved  upon.  A  fleet  of  fifteen 
sail  of  the  line,  twenty  frigates,  six  luggers,  and  fifty  transports,  containing 
sixteen  thousand  troops,  sailed  on  the  16th  of  December  to  land  in  Ban  try 
Bay,  on  the  coast  of  Ireland.  But  the  very  night  after  the  squadron  left 
port  a  heavy  storm  arose,  in  which  one  ship  foundered  and  the  fleet  was 
widely  dispersed.  A  singular  series  of  casualties  ensued.  Some  of  the 
ships  entered  the  bay,  but  not  finding  their  companions,  after  waiting  a 
short  time,  returned  to  France.  Other  ships  of  the  expedition  soon  after  en- 
tered, but,  finding  the  bay  deserted,  they  also  returned.  The  expedition 
thus  proved  a  total  failure.* 

The  inefl&cient  Directory  was  quite  unable  to  rectify  the  disorders  into 
which  the  internal  affairs  of  the  state  were  plunged.  They  uttered  loud 
complaints,  which  did  but  increase  discontent  and  disgust.  The  press,  being 
entirely  free,  indulged  in  the  utmost  violence ;  Royalists  and  Jacobins  assail- 
ing the  feeble  government  without  mercy  and  thwarting  its  operations  in 
every  possible  way.  The  army  of  Italy  was  triumphant — almost  miracu- 
lously so.  Every  where  else  the  Republic  was  in  disgrace.  The  Directory 
endeavored  to  throw  the  blame  of  the  public  calamities  upon  the  two  Coun- 
cils, and  published  the  following  message,  which  was  as  true  as  it  was  ill- 
advised  : 

"  All  departments  are  distressed.  The  pay  of  the  troops  is  in  arrear ; 
the  defenders  of  the  country,  in  rags  and  enervated  by  want,  in  disgust  are 
led  to  desertion.  The  hospitals  are  destitute  of  furniture,  fire,  and  drugs. 
The  charitable  institutions,  utterly  impoverished,  repel  the  poor  and  infirm. 
The  creditors  of  the  state,  the  contractors  who  supply  the  armies,  with  dif- 
ficulty obtain  but  a  small  portion  of  the  sums  that  are  their  due.  Distress 
keeps  aloof  men  who  could  perform  the  same  services  better  and  cheaper. 
The  roads  are  cut  up ;  the  communications  interrupted.  The  public  func- 
tionaries are  without  salary ;  from  one  end  of  the  Republic  to  the  other 
judges  and  administrators  may  be  seen  reduced  to  the  horrible  alternative 
either  of  dragging  on,  with  their  families,  a  miserable  existence,  or  of  being 
dishonored  by  selling  themselves  to  intrigue.  The  evil-disposed  are  every 
where  busy.  In  many  places  murder  is  being  organized,  and  the  police, 
without  activity,  without  energy,  because  it  is  without  pecuniary  means,  can 
not  put  a  stop  to  these  disorders." 

All  eyes  were  directed  to  the  achievements  of  Napoleon,  who,  with  super- 
human energy,  was  destroying  army  after  army  of  the  Allies,  astounding 
Europe  by  his  exploits,  and  exciting  the  admiration  of  his  countrymen. 
Thiers  thus  describes  the  position  he  then  occupied  in  the  public  mind : 

"  Sickness,  together  with  the  excessive  fatigues  of  the  campaign,  had  weak- 
ened him  extremely.     He  could  scarcely  sit  on  horseback ;  his  cheeks  were 

*  "  It  is  a  curious  subject  for  speculation  what  might  have  been  the  result  had  Hoche  suc- 
ceeded in  landing  with  sixteen  thousand  of  his  best  troops  on  the  Irish  shores.  To  those  who 
consider,  indeed,  the  patriotic  spirit,  indomitable  valor,  and  persevering  character  of  the  English 
people,  and  the  complete  command  they  had  of  the  sea,  the  final  issue  of  such  a  contest  can  not 
appear  doubtful ;  but  it  is  equally  evident  that  the  addition  of  such  a  force  and  so  able  a  com- 
mander to  the  numerous  bodies  of  Irish  malcontents  would  have  engendered  a  dreadful  domes- 
tic war,  and  that  the  whole  energies  of  the  empire  might  for  a  very  long  period  have  been  em- 
ployed in  saving  itself  from  dismemberment." — Alison's  History  of  Europe,  vol.  i.,  p.  444. 


420  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XXXIX. 

hollow  and  livid.  His  whole  appearance  was  deplorable.  His  eyes  alone, 
still  bright  and  piercing  as  ever,  indicated  that  the  fire  of  his  soul  was  not 
extinguished.  His  physical  proportions  formed  a  singular  contrast  with  his 
genius  and  his  renown,  a  contrast  amusing  to  soldiers  at  once  jovial  and  en- 
thusiastic. Notwithstanding  the  decline  of  his  strength,  his  extraordinary 
energy  supported  him  and  imparted  an  activity  which  was  apphed  to  all 
objects  at  once. 

"  He  had  begun  what  he  called  the  war  against  rohbers.  Intriguers  of  all 
kinds  had  thronged  to  Italy  for  the  purpose  of  introducing  themselves  into 
the  administration  of  the  armies  and  profiting  by  the  wealth  of  that  fine 
country.  While  simplicity  and  indigence  pervaded  the  armies  of  the  Rhine, 
luxury  pervaded  that  of  Italy — luxury  as  great  as  its  glory.  The  soldiers, 
well  clothed  and  well  fed,  were  every  where  cordially  received,  and  lived 
in  pleasure  and  abundance.  The  officers,  the  generals,  participated  in  the 
general  opulence,  and  laid  the  foundations  of  their  fortunes. 

"  Bonaparte,  who  had  within  him  all  the  passions,  but  who,  at  that  mo- 
ment, was  engrossed  by  one  passion,  that  of  glory,  lived  in  a  simple  and  aus- 
tere manner,  seeking  relaxation  only  in  the  society  of  his  wife,  to  whom  he 
was  tenderly  attached,  and  who  had  come,  at  his  desire,  to  his  head-quarters. 
Indignant  at  the  disorders  of  the  administration,  he  strictly  scrutinized  the 
minutest  details,  verified  by  personal  inspection  the  accounts  of  the  compa- 
nies, denounced  the  dishonest  administrators  without  mercy,  and  caused 
them  to  be  prosecuted." 

Among  the  Directors,  Carnot  was  one  of  the  noblest  of  men.  The  purity 
of  his  character  slander  has  never  attempted  to  taint.  Barras  was  a  fearless 
soldier  and  a  shameless  debauchee.  He  boasted  of  the  profligacies  in  which 
he  openly  indulged,  and  he  rioted  in  boundless  extravagance,  which  he  sup- 
ported through  corruption  and  bribes.  Rewbel  was  a  lawyer,  a  man  of 
ability  and  integrity.*  These  three  men  had  belonged  to  different  political 
parties  during  the  Eevolution,  and  each  detested  the  others.  Lareveill^re 
was  an  honest  man,  but  destitute  of  those  commanding  qualities  so  essential 
to  the  post  he  occupied.  Lc  Tourneur  was  a  vain,  good-natured  man  who 
merely  echoed  the  voice  of  Carnot.  All  the  Directors  but  Barras  occupied, 
with  their  families,  apartments  in  the  Palace  of  the  Luxembourg.  In  the 
public  mind  this  discordant  Directory  consisted  of  two  parties,  Barras,  Rew- 
bel, and  Lareveill6re  in  the  majority,  and  Carnot  and  Le  Tourneur  in  the 
opposition. 

*  "Carnot,  Barras,  Rcwbcl,  and  Lareveillbre  had  been  members  of  the  Convention;  and, 
although  none  of  them  had  been  famous  durinp;  the  Reign  of  Terror  for  any  atrocious  act,  still 
the  three  first  had  voted  the  death  of  the  king— a  vote  which,  notwithstandinp  the  fatal  though 
powerful  considerations  that  may  be  presented  in  alleviation,  placed  them  among  the  most  furi- 
ous Jacobins,  and  was  prejudicial  to  the  respect  with  which  they  ought  to  have  been  invested." 
— Memoirs  of  Lavaktte. 


1797.]  THE  OVERTHROW  OF  THE  DIRECTORY,  ETC.  421 


CHAPTER  XL. 

THE   OVERTHROW  OF  THE  DIRECTORY  AND   THE   ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE 

CONSULATE. 

Proclamation  of  Napoleon. — March  into  Austria. — ^Letter  to  the  Archduke  Charles. — Prelimin- 
aries of  Peace. — Union  of  Parties  against  the  Directory. — Triumph  of  the  Directory. — Agency 
of  Napoleon. — Severe  Measures  of  the  Directory. — Indignation  of  Napoleon. — Dictatorship  of 
the  Directory. — Dismay  of  the  Royalists. — Treaty  of  Campo  Formio. — Napoleon's  Address  to 
the  Cispadane  Republic. — Remarks  of  Napoleon. — Plan  for  the  Invasion  of  India. — Expedi- 
tion to  Egypt. — New  Coalition. — Rastadt. 

It  was  now  the  month  of  March,  1797,  and  Napoleon,  having  driven  the 
Austrians  out  of  Italy,  issued  the  following  proclamation,  an  unexaggerated 
statement  of  facts  which  amazed  and  appalled  hostile  Europe : 

"  Soldiers !  the  capture  of  Mantua  has  put  an  end  to  the  war  of  Italy. 
You  have  been  victorious  in  fourteen  pitched  battles  and  seventy  actions. 
You  have  taken  100,000  prisoners,  500  field-pieces,  2000  heavy  cannon,  and 
four  pontoon  trains.  The  contributions  laid  on  the  countries  you  have  con- 
quered have  fed,  maintained,  and  paid  the  army ;  besides  which,  you  have 
sent  thirty  millions  ($6,000,000)  to  the  Minister  of  Finance  for  the  use  of 
the  public  treasury.  You  have  enriched  the  Museum  of  Paris  with  three 
hundred  master-pieces  of  ancient  and  modern  Italy,  which  it  had  required 
thirty  centuries  to  produce.  You  have  conquered  for  the  Republic  the  fin- 
est countries  in  Europe.  The  kings  of  Sardinia  and  Naples,  the  Pope,  and 
the  Duke  of  Parma  are  separated  from  the  coalition.  You  have  exj)elled  the 
English  from  Leghorn,  Genoa,  and  Corsica.  Still  higher  destinies  await  you. 
You  will  prove  yourselves  worthy  of  them.  Of  all  the  foes  who  combined 
to  stifle  our  Republic  in  its  birth  the  emperor  alone  remains." 

On  the  16th  of  March  the  little  army  of  Bonaparte  crossed  the  Taglia- 
mento  to  march  upon  Vienna,  there  to  compel  Austria  to  cease  the  iniqui- 
tous war  which  now  for  six  years  had  desolated  Europe.  Battle  after  battle 
ensued,  and  the  Austrians  met  the  French  only  to  be  vanquished.  On  the 
31st  of  March  Napoleon  wrote  to  the  Archduke  Charles,  who  was  brother  of 
the  emperor  and  commander-in-chief  of  the  Austrian  forces,  as  follows  : 

"  General-in-Chief:  brave  soldiers  make  war  and  desire  peace.  Has  not 
this  war  lasted  six  years  ?  Have  we  not  slain  men  enough  and  inflicted  ca- 
lamities enough  on  suffering  humanity  ?  It  cries  out  on  all  sides.  Europe, 
which  had  taken  up  arms  against  the  French  RepubUc,  has  laid  them  down. 
Your  nation  alone  is  left,  and  yet  blood  is  about  to  be  spilled  more  abund- 
antly than  ever. 

"  The  Executive  Directory  of  the  French  Republic  communicated  to  his 
majesty  the  emperor  its  desire  to  put  an  end  to  the  war  which  afflicts  both 
nations.  The  intervention  of  the  Court  of  London  has  opposed  this  wish. 
Is  there,  then,  no  hope  of  arrangement  ?  And  must  we  continue  to  slaugh- 
ter one  another  for  the  interests  and  the  passions  of  a  nation  which  knows 
nothing  of  the  calamities  of  war  ?     You,  general,  who  are  by  birth  so  near 


422  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChaP.  XL. 

to  the  throne,  and  above  all  the  petty  passions  which  so  frequently  actuate 
ministers  and  governments,  are  you  determined  to  merit  the  title  of  bene- 
factor of  the  whole  human  race  and  the  real  savior  of  Germany  ? 

"  Imagine  not,  general,  that  I  mean  by  this  that  it  is  not  possible  to  save 
her  by  the  force  of  arms.  But,  even  supposing  that  the  chances  of  war 
turn  in  your  favor,  Germany  will  not,  on  that  account,  be  the  less  ravaged. 
As  for  me,  general,  if  the  overture  which  I  have  the  honor  to  make  to  you 
can  save  the  life  of  a  single  man,  I  shall  be  prouder  of  the  civic  crown 
which  I  shall  feel  that  I  have  deserved  than  of  the  melancholy  glory  which 
can  result  from  military  successes."* 

The  archduke  replied  that  he  was  commanded  to  prosecute  the  war,  and 
had  no  authority  to  enter  into  conference  upon  terms  of  peace.f  The  war 
was  now  prosecuted  with  renewed  vigor,  as  the  French  drove  the  Austrians 
through  the  defiles  of  the  Tyrol,  and  entered  the  plains  of  Germany.  But 
a  few  days  passed  ere  Napoleon  arrived  within  sight  of  the  steeples  of  Vi- 
enna. The  capital  was  in  consternation ;  the  people  demanded  peace ;  the 
archduke  urged  it,  declaring  himself  quite  unable  to  protect  the  city.  The 
Austrian  court  now  implored  the  clemency  of  the  conqueror,  and  sent  com- 
missioners to  Napoleon,  at  his  head-quarters  at  Leoben,  with  full  powers  to 
settle  the  basis  of  peace.  The  preliminaries  were  signed  at  Leoben  on  the 
18th  of  April,  which  put  a  stop  to  the  effusion  of  blood. 

By  the  election  in  May  of  one  third  of  the  two  legislative  bodies,  the 
counter-revolutionists  had  obtained  a  majority  in  both  chambers.  This  ex- 
ceedingly elated  the  Eoyalists.  The  two  Councils  now  commenced  a  furious 
war  against  the  Kepublican  Directory,  seeking  to  overthrow  it,  and  to  re- 
establish, not  the  old  Bourbon  despotism,  but  the  constitutional  monarchy 
of  1791.  There  were  now  four  parties  in  the  field.  The  old  Bourbon 
party,  the  friends  of  constitutional  monarchy,  the  Eepublicans,  and  the  Jac- 
obins. Three  of  these  parties  united  against  the  Directory,  each  hoping, 
in  the  overthrow  of  the  Directors,  to  estabhsh  its  own  principles.  One  of 
the  Directors  was  to  leave.  The  Eoyalists  succeeded  in  placing  Barthclcmy, 
a  counter-revolutionist,  in  his  place.  The  conflict  which  now  arose  was 
whether  the  Eepublican  Directory  should  be  abolished  or  maintained.  A 
stern  conflict  was  evidently  rising.  The  Directory  headed  one  party,  the 
two  Councils  the  other.  In  accordance  with  the  disastrous  temper  of  the 
times,  both  parties  began  to  count  bayonets  instead  of  votes,  that  the  ques- 
tion might  be  settled  on  a  field  of  blood.  The  emigrants  and  the  priests 
returned  in  great  numbers,  forged  passports  being  transmitted  to  them  from 
Paris. 

The  Councils  had  a  legislative  guard  of  fifteen  hundred  men,  and  hoped 

*  Mdmoircs  (Ic  Napoleon,  dirt,  an  Montholon  ct  Gourpaiul,  vf)l.  iv.,  p.  90,  07. 

t  "  Unquc'stionubly,  sir,"  replied  the  duke,  "I  desire  as  niuch  as  you  the  attainment  of  peace 
for  the  happiness  of  the  people  and  of  humanity.  Considering,  however,  that  in  tiu>  situation 
which  I  hold,  it  is  no  jmrt  of  my  husiness  to  inquire  into  and  determine  the  quarrel  of  the  heliiK- 
crent  powers,  and  that  I  am  not  furnished,  on  the  part  of  the  emperor,  with  anv  idenipotentiarj- 
powen.  for  treating,  you  will  excuse  me,  peneral,  if  I  do  not  enter  into  nepotiation  with  you 
touchmR  a  matter  of  the  luKhest  importance,  but  which  does  not  lie  within  mv  department. 
Whatever  shall  hapix-n,  either  respectiuR  the  future  chances  of  war  or  the  prospects  of  peace,  I 
re<iuc8t  you  to  be  equally  convinced  of  my  distinguished  esteem." 


1797.] 


THE  OVERTHROW  OF  THE  DIRECTORY,  ETC. 


423 


to  avail  itself  of  the  National  Guard,  not  then  fully  reorganized.  They  also 
placed  great  reliance  on  Pichegru,  who  was  treasonably  plotting  the  restora- 
tion of  the  Bourbons.  The  Constitution  did  not  allow  any  of  the  standing 
army  to  approach  within  thirty -six  miles  of  Paris.  In  defiance  of  this  pro- 
vision, the  Directory,  under  pretense  of  sending  a  fresh  expedition  to  Ire- 
land, assembled  twelve  thousand  veteran  troops  under  the  walls  of  the 
metropolis.  Greneral  Bonaparte,  aware  of  the  peril  of  the  Directory,  and 
of  the  danger  of  the  restoration  of  royalty,  had  sent  the  intrepid  Augereau 
to  Paris  to  assist  the  Directory  in  any  emergency.  The  Directory  was  the 
established  government  of  the  nation,  and,  imbecile  as  it  was,  its  overthrow 
by  violence  at  that  time  could  only  lead  to  anarchy  and  blood.* 

At  midnight  on  the  17th  Fructidor  (September  8d),  tTj^relve  thousand 
men,  with  forty  pieces  of  cannon,  were  silently  marched  into  the  city,  and 
surrounded  the  Tuileries.  A  body  of  the  Legislative  Guard  was  stationed 
at  the  Pont  Tournant,  the  entrance-passage  to  the  garden.  Augereau  ap- 
proached them  at  the  head  of  a  numerous  staff.  "Are  you  Eepublicans?" 
said  he.  The  soldiers  immediately  lowered  their  arms,  and  shouted  "  Vive 
Augereau/  Vive  le  DiredoireP^  They  fraternized  at  once  with  the  troops 
of  the  Directory.     The  victory  was  gained ;  no  blood  was  shed.     At  six 


AUGEKEAU   AT  THE  PONT  TOITENANT. 


*  "The  Directory  became  alarmed  for  their  own  existence.  It  had  already  been  ascertained 
that  190  of  the  deputies  had  been  engaged  to  restore  the  exiled  royal  family,  while  the  Direct- 
ory could  only  reckon  on  the  support  of  130 ;  and  the  Ancients  had  resolved,  by  a  large  major- 
ity, to  transfer  the  seat  of  the  Legislature  to  Rouen,  on  account  of  its  proximity  to  the  western 
provinces,  whose  Royalist  principles  had  always  been  so  decided.  The  next  election,  it  was  ex- 
pected, M'ould  nearly  extinguish  the  Revolutionary  party ;  and  the  Directory  were  a^rare  that 
the  transition  was  easy,  for  regicides,  as  the  greater  part  of  them  were,  from  the  Luxembourg  to 
the  scaffold." — Alison,  vol.  i.,  p.  491. 


424  TUE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ClIAP.  XL. 

o'clock  in  the  morning,  when  the  citizens  awoke,  they  were  surprised  to 
find  that  a  revolution  had  taken  place  during  the  night. 

The  three  victorious  directors  condemned  to  banishment  their  two  col- 
leagues, Carnot  and  Barthelemy,  forty -two  members  of  the  Council  of  Five 
Hundred,  eleven  of  the  Council  of  Ancients,  several  Royalist  agents,  and 
forty-two  editors,  publishers,  and  proprietors  of  counter-revolutionary  jour- 
nals. It  is  but  a  wretched  extenuation  for  these  deeds  of  violence,  to  assert 
that,  had  the  Councils  gained  the  victory,  they  would  have  treated  the  Di- 
rectory in  the  same  way.  The  Directory  thus  assumed  the  dictatorship 
over  unhappy,  distracted  France ;  but  even  that  was  better  than  anarchy, 
and  almost  any  thing  was  better  than  a  return  to  the  old  Bourbon  despot- 
ism.* This  signal  defeat  crushed  the  hopes  of  the  Royalists.  The  minority 
of  the  Councils,  who  were  in  the  interests  of  the  Directory,  were  reassembled 
in  the  Odeon  and  the  School  of  Medicine,  and  with  this  organization  the 
government  attempted  to  carry  on  the  distracted  affairs  of  the  nation. f 

On  the  12  th  of  August  Augereau  had  written  to  General  Bonaparte, 

"Nothing  is  more  certain  than  that,  if  the  public  mind  is  not  essentially 
changed  before  the  approaching  elections,  every  thing  is  lost,  and  a  civil  war 
remains  as  our  last  resource." 

On  the  23d  of  September  Napoleon  wrote  to  Augereau,  "  The  whole  army 
applauds  the  wisdom  and  energy  which  you  have  displayed  in  this  crisis, 
and  has  rejoiced  sincerely  at  the  success  of  the  patriots.  It  is  only  to  be 
hoped,  now,  that  moderation  and  wisdom  will  guide  your  steps.  That  is  the 
most  ardent  wish  of  my  heart.":}: 

But  Napoleon  was  indignant  when  he  heard  of  the  excessive  severity 
adopted  by  the  Directory.  "  It  might  have  been  right,"  he  wrote,  "  to  de- 
prive Carnot,  Barthelemy,  and  the  fifty  deputies  of  their  appointments,  and 
put  them  under  surveillance  in  some  cities  in  the  interior.  Pichegru,  "Wil- 
lot,Imbert,  Colonne,  and  one  or  two  others  might  justly  have  expiated  their 
treason  on  the  scaffold. §  But  to  see  men  of  great  talent,  such  as  Portalis, 
Ducoudray,  Fontanes ;  tried  patriots,  such  as  Boissy  d'Anglas,  Dumolard, 
Murinais ;  supreme  magistrates,  such  as  Carnot  and  Barthelemy,  condemned 
without  either  trial  or  accusation,  is  frightful.  What !  to  punish  with  trans- 
portation a  number  of  writers  of  pamphlets,  who  deserved  only  contempt 
and  a  trifling  correction,  was  to  renew  the  proscriptions  of  the  Roman  trium- 
virs. It  was  to  act  more  cruelly  than  Fouquicr  Tinville ;  since  he,  at  least, 
put  the  accused  on  their  trial,  and  condemned  them  only  to  death.  All  the 
armies,  all  the  people  were  for  a  Republic.     State  necessity  could  not  be  al- 

*  "  We  may  say  that,  on  the  18fh  Fructidor  of  the  year  V.,  it  was  neccssarj'  that  the  Dirccto- 
rj'  should  triumph  over  the  countcr-revohition,  hy  decimating  the  Councils ;  or  that  the  Councils 
should  triumjih  over  the  Repuhlic,  by  overthrowinR  the  Directory.  The  question  thus  stated,  it 
remains  to  inquire,  ^rs^,  if  the  Directory  could  have  conquered  by  any  other  means  than  a  coup 
(Tilat,  and,  secoml/i/,  %vhctlicr  it  misused  its  victor}-."— J/tV/nc/,  p.  338. 

t  "  Though  France  suffered  extremely  from  the  usurpation  which  overthrew  its  electoral  rov- 
crnment,  ancl  substituted  the  empire  of  force  for  the  chimeras  of  democracy,  there  seems  no 
reason  to  believe  that  a  more  just  or  equitable  government  could,  at  that  period,  have  been  sub- 
stituted in  its  room." — Alison,  vol.  i.,  p.  41)G. 

t  Bourrienne,  vol.  i.,  p.  250. 

§  These  men  were  in  constant  correspondence  with  the  Bourbons,  and  were  conspiring  for 
their  restoration. 


1797.]  THE  OVERTHROW  OF  THE  DIRECTORY,  ETC.  425 

leged  in  favor  of  so  revolting  an  injustice,  so  flagrant  a  violation  of  the  laws 
and  the  rights  of  the  citizens."* 

The  Eoyalists  were  dismayed  by  this  sudden  disaster.  The  priests  and 
emigrants,  who  had  returned  in  great  numbers,  fled  again  to  the  frontiers. 
Those  who  were  advancing  toward  France  retreated  back  to  Switzerland 
and  Germany.  M.  Merlin  and  M.  FranQois — the  one  a  lawyer,  the  other  a 
man  of  letters,  and  both  upright  Republicans — were  chosen  in  the  place  of 
Carnot  and  Barthelemy.  The  guilt  of  Pichegru  was  fally  established.  Mo- 
reau,  in  crossing  the  Rhine,  had  taken  the  papers  of  General  Klinglin,  in 
which  he  had  found  the  whole  treasonable  correspondence  of  Pichegru  with 
the  Prince  of  Conde. 

The  Directors  now  pushed  the  measures  of  government  with  Revolution- 
ary energy.  The  British  government,  finding  themselves  deprived  of  every 
ally,  sent  Lord  Malmesbury  to  Paris  to  negotiate  for  peace.  The  British 
ministry  were  willing  to  give  up  the  colonies  which  they  had  wrested  from 
France,  but  would  not  give  up  the  colonies  they  had  wrested  from  the  allies 
of  France^  Spain  and  Holland.  It  is  difficult  to  see  how  the  Directory,  with 
any  sense  of  honor  whatever,  could,  under  such  circumstances,  have  aban- 
doned its  allies.  Upon  this  point  there  was  a  rupture,  and  war  with  En- 
gland continued  to  rage.f 

On  the  28th  of  October  the  treaty  of  Campo  Formio  was  signed,  which 
secured  peace  with  the  Emperor  of  Germany.  The  Directors  had  sent  to 
Napoleon  an  ultimatum  which  would  have  prevented  the  possibility  of  peace. 
Napoleon  boldly  rejected  their  demands,  and  made  peace  on  his  own  terms. 
The  nation  hailed  the  peace  with  such  joy,  and  Napoleon  was  now  so 
boundlessly  popular,  that  the  Directors  did  not  dare  to  refuse  their  ratifica- 
tion. Napoleon  was  now  prepared  to  return  to  France.  He  had  established 
the  Cisalpine  Republic,  and  compelled  its  recognition  by  the  only  powers 
which  could  endanger  its  existence.  Before  leaving  Italy  he  thus  addressed 
this  state  in  the  infancy  of  its  freedom : 

"You  are  the  first  people  in  history  who  have  become  free  without  fac- 
tions, without  revolutions,  without  convulsions.  We  have  given  you  free- 
dom ;  take  care  to  preserve  it.  To  be  worthy  of  your  destiny,  make  only 
discreet  and  moderate  laws ;  cause  them  to  be  executed  with  energy ;  favor 
the  diffusion  of  knowledge,  and  respect  religion.  Compose  your  army,  not 
of  disreputable  men,  but  of  citizens  imbued  with  the  principles  of  the  Re- 
public and  closely  linked  to  its  prosperity.  You  have,  in  general,  need  to 
impress  yourselves  with  the  feeling  of  your  strength,  and  with  the  dignity 
which  befits  the  freeman.     Divided,  and  bowed  down  for  ages  by  tyranny, 

*  Memoires  de  Napoleon,  diet,  au  Montholon  et  Gourgaud,  vol.  iv.,  p.  233. 

"The  ISth  Fructidor  is  the  true  era  of  the  commencement  of  military  despotism  in  France. 
The  subsequent  government  of  the  country  was  but  a  succession  of  illegal  usurpations  on  the  part 
of  the  depositaries  of  power,  in  which  the  people  had  no  share,  and  by  which  their  rights  were 
equally  invaded,  until  tranquillity  was  restored  by  the  vigorous  hand  of  Napoleon." — Alison,  vol. 
i.,  p.  496. 

t  Mignet  says,  "The  offers  of  Pitt  not  being  sincere,  the  Directory  did  not  allow  itself  to  be 
deceived  by  diplomatic  stratagems.  The  negotiations  were  twice  broken  off,  and  war  continued 
between  the  two  powers.  Wliile  England  negotiated  at  Lille,  she  was  preparing  at  St.  Peters- 
burg the  triple  alliance  or  second  coalition." — Migvet,  p.  341. 


^25  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XL. 

you  would  not,  unaided,  have  conquered  your  liberty.  In  a  few  years,  if 
left  to  yourselves,  no  power  on  earth  will  be  strong  enough  to  wrest  it  from 
you.  Till  then  France  will  protect  you  against  the  attacks  of  your  neigh- 
bors ;  its  political  system  will  be  united  with  yours."* 

The  blessings  of  the  Italians  were  showered  upon  Napoleon  as  he  depart- 
ed. As  he  entered  France  he  was  every  where  greeted  with  love,  admira- 
tion, and  enthusiasm.  His  progress  through  the  departments  was  a  tri- 
umplial  march.  In  Paris  he  was  received  with  salvos  of  artillery,  ringing 
of  bells,  illuminations,  and  the  huzzas  of  the  multitude.  In  the  laconic  ad- 
dress of  Napoleon  to  the  authorities  of  government  in  their  grand  reception, 
he  uttered  sentiments  in  perfect  accordance  with  his  whole  precedent  and 
subsequent  career. 

"  The  French  people,"  said  he,  "  in  order  to  be  free  had  kings  to  combat. 
To  obtain  a  Constitution  founded  on  reason  it  had  the  prejudices  of  eighteen 
centuries  to  overcome.  The  Constitution  of  the  year  III.  and  you  have  tri- 
umphed over  all  obstacles.  Keligion,  feudality,  royalty,  have  successively, 
for  twenty  centuries  past,  governed  Europe.  But  from  the  peace  which  you 
have  just  concluded  dates  the  era  of  representative  governments.  You  have 
succeeded  in  organizing  the  great  nation  whose  vast  territory  is  circum- 
scribed only  because  Nature  herself  has  fixed  its  limits.  You  have  done 
more.  The  two  finest  countries  in  Europe,  formerly  so  renowned  for  the 
arts,  the  sciences,  and  the  great  men  whose  cradle  they  were,  see  with  the 
greatest  hopes  genius  and  freedom  issuing  from  the  tomb  of  their  ancestors. 
These  are  two  pedestals  on  which  destiny  is  about  to  place  two  powerful  na- 
tions. I  have  the  honor  to  deliver  to  you  the  treaty  signed  at  Campo  For- 
mio,  and  ratified  by  his  majesty  the  emperor.  Peace  secures  the  liberty,  the 
prosperity,  and  the  glory  of  the  Eepublic.  When  the  happiness  of  the 
French  people  shall  be  seated  on  letter  organic  laws,  all  Europe  will  become 
free." 

Napoleon,  having  returned  to  Paris,  sought  seclusion,  laid  aside  his  mili- 
tary dress,  and  devoted  himself  with  great  assiduity  to  studies  of  natural  and 
political  science.  He  was  chosen  a  member  of  the  Institute,  and  took  his 
seat  between  the  distinguished  philosophers  Lagrange  and  Laplace.  He 
wrote  the  following  note  in  acceptance  of  his  election : 

"  The  suffrage  of  the  distinguished  men  who  compose  the  Institute  honors 
me.  I  feel  sensibly  that  before  I  can  become  their  equal  I  must  long  be 
their  pupil.  The  only  true  conquests,  those  which  awaken  no  regret,  are 
those  we  obtain  over  ignorance.  The  most  honorable,  as  the  most  useful 
|)ursuit  of  nations,  is  that  which  contributes  to  the  extension  of  the  human 

•  Mi-m.  <le  Napoleon,  diet,  au  Month,  ct  Gonrpauil,  vol.  iv.,  p.  271. 

The  Enplish  Tory  historians,  such  as  Scott  and  Alison,  denounce  France  vehemently  for  rc- 
fusinp;  to  abandon  her  allies,  Spain  and  Holland,  for  the  sake  of  peace  with  England.  At  the 
name  time  they  load  Napoleon  with  epithets  of  infamy  for  refusing  to  continue  a  bloody  war  with 
Austria  for  the  sake  of  jjrotectinp  an  aristocratic  and  perfidious  enemy,  Venice,  from  the  rapacity 
of  Austria,  an  ally  with  Venice  in  the  unjust  war  upon  France.  The  remarks  of  Alison  upon 
this  subject  arc  a  melancholy  exhibition  of  the  power  of  prejudice  to  prevent  the  sense  of  justice. 
"Austria,"  writes  T.W.  Redhead,  "nefariously  apjjropriated  the  possessions  of  a  faithful  and  at- 
tached ally,  while  France  did  but  consent  to  the  desi)oilment  of  a  hostile  government,  ready  to  as- 
sail her  upon  the  least  reverse. "— T/ie  French  Jicvoludoni!,  vol.  ii.,  p.  100. 


1798.]  THE  OVERTHKOW  OF  THE  DIRECTORY,  ETC.  427 

intellect.  The  real  greatness  of  the  French  Eepublic  ought  henceforth  to 
consist  in  not  permitting  the  existence  of  one  new  idea  which  has  not  been 
added  to  the  national  stock." 

When  subsequently  speaking  of  this  period  of  his  life  he  remarked,  "  Man- 
kind are,  in  the  end,  always  governed  by  superiority  of  intellectual  quah- 
ties,  and  none  are  more  sensible  of  this  than  the  military  profession.  When, 
on  my  return  to  Paris  from  Italy,  I  assumed  the  dress  of  the  Institute  and 
associated  with  men  of  science,  I  knew  what  I  was  doing,  I  was  sure  of 
not  being  misunderstood  by  the  lowest  drummer  of  the  army." 

He  was  frequently  consulted  by  the  Directory  on  important  questions. 
He  had  no  confidence  in  the  government  of  the  Directory,  and  only  lent  it 
his  support  so  far  as  to  prevent  the  restoration  of  royalty.  The  Directory 
wished  him  to  take  command  of  a  new  army,  to  try  to  conquer,  on  the  shores 
of  England,  a  peace  with  that  government  which  now  alone  continued  the 
war.  With  that  object  in  view  he  visited  the  coast  and  carefully  scrutinized 
the  resources  at  command  for  the  invasion  of  England.  He,  however,  pro- 
nounced the  project  too  hazardous,  and  convinced  the  Directory  that  the 
only  vulnerable  point  which  England  presented  was  in  India.  In  accord- 
ance with  this  suggestion  a  secret  expedition  was  fitted  out  to  invade  India 
by  the  way  of  Egypt. 

On  the  19th  of  May,  1798,  the  Egyptian  expedition  sailed  from  Toulon. 
To  settle  innumerable  minor  affairs  in  reference  to  the  Germanic  States,  a 
Congress  of  Embassadors,  from  Austria,  France,  and  Germany  had  now  for 
some  months  been  in  session  at  Eastadt.  The  British  government  in  the 
mean  time  vigorously  commenced  endeavors  to  ally  the  monarchies  of  Eu- 
rope in  a  new  war  against  France.  It  appealed  to  the  fears  of  all  the  sover- 
eigns by  showing  them  that  the  toleration  of  any  repubhcan  institutions  in 
Europe  endangered  all  their  thrones. 

"  England,"  says  Thiers,  "  with  a  view  to  foment  this  fear  had  filled  all 
the  courts  with  her  emissaries.  She  urged  the  new  king  of  Prussia  to  relin- 
quish his  neiitrality,  and  to  preserve  Germany  from  the  inundation.  She 
endeavored  to  work  upon  the  wrong-headed  and  violent  emperor  Paul,  She 
strove  to  alarm  Austria,  and  offered  her  subsidies  if  she  would  renew  the 
war.     She  excited  the  silly  passions  of  the  Queen  of  Naples,"* 

All  over  Europe  war  began  again  to  menace  France.  While  the  com- 
missioners were  negotiating  at  Eastadt,  the  armies  of  the  new  coalition  com- 
menced their  march.  There  was  no  alternative  before  them.  Principles  of 
liberty  were  spreading  rapidly  through  Europe ;  and  the  despotic  monarchs 
could  only  maintain  their  thrones  by  quenching  that  spirit  in  blood.  They 
were  compelled  either  to  fight  or  to  surrender.  "  The  monarchs  did  right 
to  defend  their  thrones,"  say  the  Eoyalists.  "The  people  did  right  to  de- 
fend their  liberties,"  say  the  Eepublicans.  So  long  as  there  are  in  the  world 
advocates  of  aristocratic  assumption  and  advocates  of  popular  rights  so  long 
will  these  points  be  controverted.  The  Queen  of  Naples  commenced  hostili- 
ties, without  any  declaration  of  war,  by  sending  an  army  of  fifty  thousand 
men  to  drive  the  French  out  of  Italy,  in  November,  1798.  The  French  ar- 
mies now  crossed  the  Ehine  and  entered  Germany.     The  Eussian  and  the 

*  Thiers,  vol.  iv.,  p.  334. 


428 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  [ChAP.  XL. 

Austrian  armies  were  immediately  on  the  move.  The  French  embassadors 
at  Rastadt  received  orders  to  leave  in  twenty-four  hours.  At  nine  o'clock 
in  the  evening  of  the  28th  of  April  the  three  ministers,  Debry,  Bonmer, 
and  Roberjeot,  set  out  with  their  families.  They  occupied  three  carriages. 
They  had  hardly  left  the  town,  when,  in  the  darkness,  a  troop  of  Austrian 
hussars  rushed  upon  them,  and,  dragging  the  helpless  embassadors  from 
their  coaches,  cut  them  down  in  the  presence  of  their  wives  and  children. 
The  ruffians  plundered  the  carriages  and  carried  off  all  the  papers.  Debry, 
though  left  senseless  and  supposed  to  be  dead,  revived,  and,  covered  with 
wounds  and  blood,  crawled  back  to  Rastadt.  This  execrable  violation  of 
the  law  of  nations,  so  unheard  of  among  civilized  people,  excited  the  detest- 
ation of  Europe.  War,  ferocious  and  implacable,  was  again  renewed  in  all 
its  horrors.* 


ABSABSIMATION  OF  THE  EMUABSAD0B8  AT  BASTADT. 


Every  thing  was  now  in  confusion,  and  universal  discontent  rose  up  around 
the  Directory.  France  was  distracted  by  hostile  parties,  while  triumphant 
armies  were  crowding  her  frontiers.  All  social  ties  were  dissolved.  Un- 
principled rapacity  characterized  the  measures  of  government.     Religion 

♦  "Our  plenipotentiaries  were  massacred  at  Rastadt,  and  notwithstanding  the  indipnation  ex- 
pressed by  all  France  at  that  atrocity,  vengeance  was  still  very  tardy  in  overtaking  the  assassins. 
The  two  Councils  were  the  first  to  render  a  melancholy  tribute  of  honor  to  the  victims.  Who 
lliat  saw  that  ceremony  ever  forgot  its  solemnity?  ^^^lo  can  recollect  without  emotion  the  re- 
ligious silence  which  reigned  throughout  the  hull  and  galleries  when  the  vote  was  put?  The 
president  then  turned  toward  th"  curulc  chairs  of  the  victims,  on  which  lay  the  official  costume 
of  the  assassinated  representatives,  covered  with  black  crape,  bent  over  them,  pronounced  the 
names  of  Holwrjeot  and  Ronnicr,  mid  added,  in  a  voice  the  tone  of  which  was  always  thrilling, 
Ahhassinatki)  AT  Tin:  CJoNonicss  <n-  Rastadt.  Immediately  all  the  ici)rescntatives  responded, 
"■  May  their  bluml  A/  f/;».7i  the  heads  of  their  murderers.'  " — Duchess  o/Abrantcs,  p.  20C. 


1799.]  THE  OVEETHROW  OF  THE  DIRECTORY,  ETC.  429 

was  abolislied.  and  the  administration  of  justice  seemed  a  farce.  The  laws 
were  disregarded ;  violence  reigned  unchecked ;  intriguing  factions  succeed- 
ed each  other,  while  Jacobins,  Eoyahsts,  and  Eepubhcans  were  struggling 
for  the  supremacy.  The  people,  disgusted  with  this  state  of  anarchy,  were 
longing  for  a  deliverer  who  would  rescue  the  government  from  disgrace  and 
at  the  same  time  save  France  from  falling  back  under  the  despotism  of  the 
Bourbons, 

Napoleon,  in  Egypt,  informed  of  this  state  of  affairs,  decided  immediately 
to  return  to  France.  He  landed  at  Frejus  on  the  9th  of  October,  1799,  and 
traversed  France,  from  the  Mediterranean  to  Paris,  through  a  constant  scene 
of  rejoicing.  Such  universal  enthusiasm  awaited  him,  that  without  the 
shedding  of  a  drop  of  blood  he  overthrew  the  imbecile  government  of  the 
Directory  and  established  the  Consulate.  The  nation  received  this  change 
with  almost  universal  applause.  For  the  narrative  of  these  events  and  the 
subsequent  career  of  the  Eevolution  the  reader  must  be  referred  to  the  His- 
tory of  Napoleon  Bonaparte. 


INDEX, 


Abbate,  butchery  at  the,  302. 

Abrantes  (Duchess  of),  statement  of,  400. 

Allies,  condition  and  force  of  the,  295  ;  van- 
quished at  Valmy,  306. 

American  War,  its  influence  upon  France,  61. 

Amnesty,  a  general,  obtained  by  Necker,  139  ; 
opposed  by  Mirabeau,  139. 

Anecdote  of  Verginaud  in  the  prison,  354. 

Anne  (of  Austria),  her  regency,  27. 

iVnniversary  of  destruction  of  Bastille,  prepara- 
tion for  the,  181. 

Aristocracy,  destroyed  by  universal  education, 
46;  of  wealth  warred  against,  331. 

Arms  taken  by  the  people,  119. 

Army,  desertion  of  the  officers  of  the,  241 ;  (of 
the  interior),  formation  of  the,  412. 

Arrangement  between  king  and  exiled  Parlia- 
ment, 69. 

Arrest  of  the  royal  family  in  their  flight,  202. 

Assembly  (of  Notables)  meet  and  overthrow  Ca- 
lonne,  67 ;  dissolution  of  the,  68 ;  National, 
the  name  chosen,  91 ;  hall  of  the,  closed,  93 ; 
shut  out  of  tennis-court,  96 ;  ordered  by  the 
king  to  dissolve,  98;  good  advice  of,  to  the 
people,  105 ;  petition  to  the,  for  a  removal  of 
the  foreign  troops,  112 ;  declares  itself  perma- 
nent, 113;  reconciliation  of,  to  the  king,  125; 
recognized  government  of  France,  127 ;  three 
parties  in  the,  144 ;  Marat's  opinion  of  the, 
146;  members  of  the,  threatened,  149;  change 
of  name,  167;  (Constituent),  vote  themselves 
the  Church  treasures,  1 70 ;  resolve  of,  con- 
cerning the  king's  escape,  210;  preparations 
for  defense  by  the,  211;  address  of,  to  the 
French  nation,  215;  threatened  by  Marquis 
Bouille,  222 ;  decree  of,  declaring  journey  of 
the  king  faultless,  224 ;  influence  of  the,  de- 
clining, 226 ;  denounced  as  traitors,  226 ;  re- 
ceives the  mandate  of  the  Jacobins,  228 ;  Con- 
stitution completed  by  the,  230 ;  decree  of, 
dissolving  itself,  234 ;  dissolution  of  the,  235  ; 
(Legislative),  sends  forces  to  the  frontier,  247 ; 
sends  the  king's  troops  to  the  frontier,  276 ; 
unpopularity  of,  280 ;  the  king  seeks  refuge 
with  the,  285 ;  the,  stormed  by  the  mob,  286 ; 
decrees  the  suspension  of  the  king,  289 ;  over- 
awed by  the  Jacobins,  295 ;  decree  of,  that 
two  thirds  of  their  own  number  should  be 
elected  to  the  new  legislative  bodies,  403. 
See  also  Convention. 
mats,  how  secured,  170. 


Augereau,  bloodless  victory  of,  423. 

Austria,  reply  of,  to  the  French  embassador, 
245  ;  Francis  II.  ascends  the  throne  of,  246 ; 
demands  of,  that  France  should  restore  des- 
potic power,  249. 

Autun  (Bishop  of),  answer  of  Napoleon  to  the, 
231. 

Bagatelle,  pleasure-house  of  the  Coimt  d'Artois, 
72. 

Bailly  (Mons.),  attempt  to  eject  him  from  As- 
sembly, 101 ;  resigns  presidency  of  the  As- 
sembly, 105 ;  testimony  of,  regarding  the 
king.  111 ;  resigns  his  post  as  Mayor  of  Faris, 
243 ;  execution  of,  362. 

Banishment  of  Parliament  to  Troyes,  69 ;  re- 
sult of,  in  Paris,  69. 

Bank,  establishment  of  a,  36. 

Bankruptcy  in  France,  36;  the  national,  de- 
scribed, 63 ;  a  partial,  76. 

Barnave,  character  of,  216 ;  influence  of  con- 
versation of,  on  queen,  217;  speech  of,  on 
governments,  225 ;  his  last  interview  with  the 
queen,  252. 

Baronial  times,  France  during  the,  22. 

Barras,  assumes  the  command  of  the  National 
Guard,  384 ;  nominates  Napoleon  as  com- 
mander of  the  army,  404. 

Barry  (Madam  du),  character  of,  43. 

Bastille,  storming  of  the,  decided  upon,  118;  at- 
tack on  the,  120;  surrendered  by  its  garri- 
son, 121 ;  garrisoned  by  the  people,  123  ;  in- 
fluence of  the  fall  of,  upon  the  court,  123 ; 
the,  ordered  to  be  demolished,  130 ;  descrip- 
tion of  the,  53 ;  anniversary  of  destruction  of, 
182 ;  site  of  the,  converted  into  a  ball-room, 
186. 

Beaurepaire  (General),  suicide  of,  299. 

Bed  of  justice,  the  custom,  68. 

Beggary  now  becoming  universal,  169. 

Bensenval  exhorts  De  Launey  to  be  firm,  120. 

Berthier,  character  of,  135;  death  of,  137. 

Bertrand  de  Moleville,  interview  of,  M-ith  the 
king,  236. 

Bible,  how  vised  by  the  Papists,  48 ;  reason  of 
its  rejection  by  corrupt  men,  49. 

Bill  of  Rights  and  Constitution,  145. 

Billaud  Varennes,  speech  of,  392. 

Birth,  in  the  minds  of  the  nobility,  superior  even 
to  genius,  45. 

Bohemia,  war  declared  against,  by  France,  249. 


432 


INDEX. 


Boissy  d'Anglas,  heroism  of,  400. 

Bonaparte  (Napoleon),  his  boyhood,  7G  ;  elo 
quence  of,  230;  opinion  of,  touching  disci- 
pline of  troops,  231 ;  confers  the  cross  of  the 
Legion  of  Honor  upon  a  tragedian,  178;  re- 
marks of,  upon  the  riot,  301 ;  his  first  action 
in  the  Revolution,  374  ;  intrusted  ■with  the 
defense  of  Paris,  405  ;  receives  the  thanks  of 
the  Convention,  409 ;  his  support  of  the  Di- 
rectory, 413;  ill  health  of,  420;  letter  of,  to 
Archduke  Charles,  421 ;  reply  to  the  same, 
422 ;  return  of,  to  Paris,  426 ;  return  of,  from 
Egj-pt,  429. 

Bouille'  (Marquis  de),  plans  and  executes  the 
escape  of  the  royal  family,  19G;  attempt  of, 
to  rescue  the  king,  209 ;  letter  of,  to  the  As- 
sembly, 222. 

Bourrienne,  statement  of,  in  regard  to  the  mob 
of  20th  of  June,  260. 

Bread,  scarcity  of,  1.52. 

Bre'ze',  his  attempt  to  enforce  orders  of  the  king, 
99 ;  receives  orders  not  to  neglect  the  Assem- 
bly, 100. 

Brienne  (Archbishop),  succeeds  Calonne,  67 ; 
his  measure  for  the  presen-ation  of  the  na- 
tional credit,  68;  dissolves  the  Assembly  of 
Notables,  68 ;  his  fall,  68 ;  his  perplexity,  73  ; 
determines  to  break  down  Parliament,  73 ; 
his  plan,  73 ;  desires  Necker  to  take  control- 
lership  of  finances,  76 ;  resigns  and  goes  to 
Italy,  77. 

Brissot  (Mons.),  speech  of,  against  the  king,  270. 

Broglie  (Marshal)  commands  in  Versailles,  103; 
letter  of,  to  Prince  of  Conde,  111. 

Brunswick  (Duke  of),  proclamation  of  the,  279. 

Burke  (Edmund),  "Reflections"  by,  187;  his 
speech  on  the  imprisonment  of  La  Pavcttc, 
298. 

Buzot,  death  of,  362. 

Caesar,  subjugation  of  Gaul  by,  1 7. 

Calonne,  his  appointment  as  minister  of  finance, 

65;    his  measures,  popularity,  and  success, 

65 ;  recommends  an  assembly  of  notables,  66 ; 

his  banislimcnt  from  oflSce,  67. 
Camillc  Desmoulins.     See  Desmoulins. 
Campan  (Madame),  her  account  of  the  queen's 

troubles,   72;    statement  of,  concerning  the 

king,  238. 
Capctian  dynasty,  extent  of  the,  24. 
Carlovingian  dynasty  (the),  20;  end  of  the,  24. 
Carlylc,  statement  of,  402. 
Carmelites,  butchery  at  the,  302. 
Camot,  energy  of,  in  organizing  armies,  341 ; 

purity  of,  420;  banishment  of,  424. 
Carrier,  liorriblc  brutality  of,  342. 
Catalan  (Monsieur),    imprisonment  of,  in  the 

Bastille,  56. 
Catherine  (of  Russia),  letter  of,  to  Leopold,  245. 
Catholics  incited  by  the  ecclesiastics  against  the 

Protestants,  174. 


Ce'cile  Regnault  arrested  on  suspicion  of  being 
an  assassin,  376. 

Champagne  (Count  of),  generosity  of  the,  23. 

Champs  de  Mai,  change  of  the  name  of  Champs 
de  Mars  to,  20. 

Champs  de  Mars,  meetings  on  the,  19. 

Charette,  arrest  and  execution  of,  413. 

Charlemagne,  policy  of  the  government  of,  20  ; 
Christianity  during  the  reign  of,  21. 

Charles  X.     See  D'Aktois. 

Charles  Martel,  power  and  death  of,  20. 

Charlotte  Corday,  character  of,  337 ;  assassin- 
ates Marat,  338 ;  execution  of,  339. 

Chateauroux  (Duchess  of),  death  of,  39. 

Chatelet,  convicts  of,  driven  into  cells  by  the 
people,  115. 

Choiseul  (Duke  de),  boldness  of,  205. 

Christianity,  corruptions  of  the  Catholic  Church 
imputed  to,  47 ;  confounded  with  its  corrup- 
tions, 47 ;  the  corner-stone  of  democracy,  48 ; 
two  classes  of  assailants,  49 ;  decrees  advo- 
cating the  existence  of  the  Supreme  Being, 
375 ;  state  of,  during  Charlemagne's  reign, 
21 ;  renunciation  of,  360.  See  also  Scpbeme 
Being. 

Church,  decrepitude  of  the,  invites  attack,  48 ; 
its  protection  of  vice  in  high  places,  48 ;  the, 
deprived  of  its  property  by  the  vote  of  the 
Assembly,  170;  members  of  the,  deprived  of 
their  position  for  refusing  to  take  the  oath, 
191 ;  the,  affected  by  the  Constitution,  242. 

Cispadane  Republic,  the  first  Assembly  of  the, 
417. 

Citizens  of  Paris  placed  under  sur^'eillance,  296. 

Citizens'  Guard  organized,  116.   See  also  Guard. 

Clergy,  their  opposition  to  Calonne's  measures, 
67 ;  character  of  the,  23  ;  endeavor  of  the,  to 
use  religion  against  the  Revolution,  1 73 ; 
vast  wealth  of  the,  170. 

Clermont,  danger  of  the  king  at,  200. 

Clery,  his  faithful  devotion  to  the  royal  family, 
313 ;  shrewd  expedient  of,  to  ascertain  news, 
314. 

Clovis,  character  of,  illustrated,  18;  the  reign 
of,  19. 

Coblentz,  preparations  for  war  at,  241. 

Cockade  of  the  Revolution  chosen,  117;  ac- 
cepted by  Louis  XVI.,  130;  the  queen's  idea 
of  its  meaning,  132 ;  the  tricolor,  the  uniform 
of  France,  138. 

Committee  of  Public  Safety,  establishment  of 
the,  361. 

Commune  of  Paris,  cfTorts  of  the,  to  break  up 
the  conspiracy  of  the  Royalists,  295. 

"Compte  Rendu  au  Roi,"  effect  of  the  publica- 
tion of,  63. 

Condorcct,  death  of,  362, 

Conspiracy  of  nobles  to  overturn  Assembly,  102. 

Constitution,  assent  of  the  king  to  the,  232 ;  no- 
tice of  the,  by  the  Eurojiean  j)0wers,  240;  ac- 
cepted by  the  king,  1 75  ;  and  Bill  of  Rights, 


INDEX. 


433 


145 ;  a  new  Jacobin,  enacted,  337 ;  proclama- 
tion of  the,  233 ;  presentation  of  the,  to  the 
king,  231 ;  formation  of,  by  the  Assembly, 
230. 

Constitutional  party,  cause  of  the  decline  of  the, 
268. 

Convention  (National),  the,  declares  war  against 
England,  331 ;  liberal  laws  enacted  by  the, 
358 ;  attack  on  the,  by  Henriot,  384 ;  stormy 
meeting  at  the,  between  the  Jacobins  and 
Thermidorians,  393 ;  decrees  of,  against  the 
insurrection,  400;  session  of  the,  409;  re- 
marks of  Thiers  on  the,  410;  elections  for 
the,  508;  spirit  of  the,  509. 

Corn-dealers,  attack  upon  the,  134. 

Council  (of  the  Ancients),  formation  of  the,  403 ; 
(of  Five  Hundred),  the,  403. 

Count  d'Artois  (Charles  X.)  placed  in  command 
of  an  army  from  England,  412;  letter  of  Na- 
poleon to,  421 ;  his  reply,  422. 

Court,  extravagance  of  the,  49;  haste  of,  to 
leave  Versailles,  58 ;  more  feared  by  the  peo- 
ple than  the  Parliament,  71 ;  the,  driven  to 
the  importation  of  Swiss  troops,  104;  how 
affected  by  capture  of  the  Bastille,  123 ;  em- 
ploys emissaries  to  buy  up  and  destroy  the 
bread,  152;  its  plans,  156;  exultation  of,  at 
the  arrival  of  the  Flanders  regiment,  157 ; 
the,  prosecutes  Mirabeau  and  the  Duke  of 
Orleans,  188. 

Courtiers'  reasons  for  unbelief,  49. 

Credit,  public,  condition  of,  in  France  at  this 
time,  65. 

Crown,  policy  of  the  officers  of  the,  in  keeping 
the  nobles  poor,  46;  salary  of  the,  fixed, 
177. 

Cm-rency,  recoining  of  the,  35» 

D'Agoust  (Captain)  turns  the  Parliament  of 
Paris  into  the  street,  75. 

D'Aguillon  (Duke),  services  of  the,  139, 

D'Artois  (Count),  accused  of  adultery  with  the 
queen,  72. 

D'Aumont  (Duke),  defense  of,  by  La  Fayette, 
211. 

D'Espre'menil  obtains  the  edict  establishing  the 
courts,  73 ;  discovers  Brienne's  plan  to  the 
Pai-liament,  74. 

D'Estaing  (Admiral),  commander  of  the  Na- 
tional Guards  of  Versailles,  156;  letter  of,  to 
Marie  Antoinette,  157. 

Danton  appointed  minister  of  justice,  290;  re- 
markable prediction  of,  to  Louis  Philippe, 
307 ;  arrested  and  executed,  366. 

Dauphin,  imprisonment  of  the,  351 ;  death  of 
the,  412. 

De  Launey,  conduct  of,  at  the  storming  of  the 
Bastille,  119;  attempts  to  blow  up  the  Bas- 
tille, 121;  death  of,  122. 

De  Tocqueville,  his  reasons  for  the  bad  odor  of 
Christianity,  48 ;  explanation  of,  concerning 

B 


the  blindness  of  the  ruling  classes  to  their 
danger,  49. 

Death,  how  regarded  by  revolutionary  writers, 
47. 

Debts  of  France  at  the  death  of  Louis  XIV.,  35. 

Decisions  (judicial),  bought  and  sold,  49. 

Declaration  of  Louis  XVI.  of  the  object  of  his 
leaving  Paris,  221. 

Decree  establishing  the  courts  a  perfect  failure, 
75,  76. 

Dese'ze,  appeal  of,  for  the  king,  324. 

Desmoulins  (Camille),  incites  to  rebellion,  108 ; 
his  oratory,  149  ;  speech  of,  on  the  ten  dollar 
decree,  172;  interview  of,  with  La  Fayette, 
213;  remorse  of,  on  the  condemnation  of  the 
Girondists,  354 ;  letter  of,  to  his  wife,  368 ; 
terror  of,  at  the  prospect  of  death,  371 ;  exe- 
cution of,  372. 

Desmoulins  (Lucile),  letter  of,  to  Robespierre, 
368 ;  heroism  and  condemnation  of,  371 ;  ex- 
ecution of,  373. 

Desodoards,  his  description  of  the  state  of  Par- 
is, 358. 

Despotism  of  the  Court  more  oppressive  than 
that  of  the  Parliament,  71. 

Dessault,  his  '■^  crime"  and  sufferings,  55;  years 
of,  in  prison,  66. 

Diamond  Necklace,  the,  72. 

Diderot,  his  connection  with  the  "  Encyclo]  ■^- 
dia,"  48 ;  commences  by  attacking  Christiai  - 
ity,  48 ;  imprisonment  of,  48. 

Directory,  formation  of  the,  411;  Napoleon'^: 
agency  in  supporting  the,  413;  message  of 
the,  419 ;  the  tM'O  parties  in  the,  420. 

Drouet  discovers  the  king,  200 ;  arrests  the  roy- 
al family  at  Varennes,  201. 

Dubois,  character  of,  36, 

Duke  of  Orleans  regent,  34 ;  character  of  the 
regency,  35 ;  death  of  the,  36 ;  insult  of,  at 
the  Tuileries,  240. 

Dumont,  description  of  affairs  by,  114;  account 
of  Mirabeau's  influence,  149. 

Dumouriez,  interview  of,  with  the  queen,  247 ; 
entreats  the  king  to  sanction  the  decree  of  the 
Assembly,  253;  his  traitorous  surrender  of 
fortresses  to  the  Austrians,  333;  retires  to 
Switzerland,  334. 

Ecclesiastics  superseded  in  office  for  refusing  the 
oath,  191. 

Edgeworth  (Monsieur),  visits  the  king  at  the 
Temple,  325. 

Edict  of  Nantes,  proclamation  of,  by  Henry  IV., 
31 ;  revocation  of,  by  Louis  XIV.,  31. 

Edicts  issued  against  Protestants  by  Louis 
XIV.,  29. 

Education  removes  the  superiority  of  the  he- 
reditary nobility,  46. 

Electors  of  Paris  solicit  the  organization  of  Cit- 
izens' Guard,  112;  deputation  of,  115;  by 
their  acts  become  a  new  government,  117. 


434 


INDEX. 


Elizabeth  (Madame,  sister  of  the  queen),  exe- 
cution of,  351. 

England,  war  declared  against,  by  the  National 
Convention,  331 ;  determination  of,  to  crush 
the  Republic,  3!)G ;  energy  of,  in  prosecuting 
the  war  against  France,  402 ;  expedition  from, 
to  rouse  the  Royalists,  411 ;  her  price  for 
peace,  418. 

Enthusiasm  in  France  awakened  by  American 
Revolution,  60. 

Ekiuality,  universal,  origin  of  inquiry  into,  47. 

Etiquette,  want  of,  on  the  part  of  the  Assembly 
toward  the  king,  238. 

Europe,  reply  of  the  powers  of,  to  the  French 
Constitution,  240. 

Executions,  rapid  increase  of,  377. 

Extravagance  of  Court,  effect  of,  on  nation,  49. 

Famine  in  Paris,  398. 

Fanaticism  excited  by  the  ecclesiastics,  174. 

Fauchet  (Abbe'),  sermon  of,  144. 

Favorites  of  the  king  accustomed  to  obtain  blank 
and  sealed  kttres  de  cachet,  53. 

Favrus  (Marquis  of),  accused  of  attempt  to  as- 
sassinate La  Fayette  and  Bailly,  175;  trial 
and  sentence  of,  179. 

Fersen  (Count),  aids  the  royal  family  in  their 
flight,  199. 

Feudal  system,  rise  of  the,  from  the  remains  of 
Charlemagne's  empire,  22;  period  of  the,  24; 
state  of  society  to  which  it  is  adapted,  46 ; 
like  darkness  before  light,  is  dispersed  by  pop- 
ular intelligence,  46;  its  decline,  46;  privi- 
leges of  the,  surrendered,  140. 

Field  of  Mars,  assemblage  of  the  people  at  the, 
301. 

Flesselles  (Mayor),  cheats  the  people,  118 ;  death 
of,  122. 

Fleurus,  battle  of,  391. 

Food,  want  of,  begins  to  be  felt,  133. 

Foulon,  account  of,  135  ;  death  of,  130. 

Fouquier  Tinville,  fall  of,  391. 

France,  origin  of  the  name  of,  18;  condition  of, 
during  reign  of  Louis  XIV.,  34;  the  sources 
of  peril  of,  264 ;  the  three  parties  in,  267 ;  in- 
vaded by  the  Allies  in  1792,  270;  utter  con- 
fusion in,  428. 

Francis  II.  ascends  the  throne  of  Austria,  246. 

Francois,  a  baker,  hung  by  the  mob,  167. 

Franklin  (Benjamin),  eflcct  of  his  simplicity 
upon  the  French,  61. 

Fraternity  tlie  watchword  of  the  masses,  47; 
this  princiitlc  the  soul  of  the  Revolution,  47. 

Frederick  II.  of  Prussia,  friendshq)  of,  for  Vol- 
taire, 49. 

Free  institutions  supported  by  education,  46. 

French  Academy  established,  27. 

(iamin,  master  blacksmith  to  the  king,  65 ;  ac- 
count by,  of  the  king's  character,  65. 
Garde  du  Corps,  conflict  of,  wltli  the  people,  161 . 


Gaul,  its  appearance  in  ancient  times,  17;  sub- 
jugation of,  by  Caesar,  17;  the  home  of  war 
and  tumult,  18. 

Generosity  of  the  king  and  others,  152. 

Genius,  inability  of,  to  efface  ignoble  birth,  45. 

Girondists,  cause  of  the  name  of,  246 ;  joy  of 
the,  on  the  Republic  being  proclaimed,  309 ; 
plot  to  assassinate  the,  332 ;  the,  arrested, 
337 ;  brought  before  the  Revolutionary  tri- 
bunal, 353 ;  condemnation  of  the,  354 ;  last 
supper  of  the,  355 ;  execution  of  the,  356. 

Goguelat  (M.  de),  shot  by  the  National  Guard, 
206. 

"Golden  age  of  kings,"  the,  29. 

Government,  its  desire  to  keep  the  people  poor. 
50 ;  the,  of  the  National  Assembly  establish- 
ed, 127. 

Grenelle,  attack  on  the  camp  at,  417. 

Grenoble,  Parliament  at,  refuses  to  surrender  to 
the  lettres  de  cachet,  75. 

Guard,  National,  formed  and  placed  under  com- 
mand, 126. 

Guards,  the  French,  protect  the  people,  110: 
refuse  to  accept  ;jarc?on,  128. 

Guillotin  (Dr.),  proposes  the  use  of  his  instru- 
ment, 173. 

Gustavus  III.  (of  Sweden),  assassination  of. 
247. 

Hebert,  the  leader  in  Paris,  364 ;  downfall  and 

death  of,  365. 
Hebertists,  execution  of  the,  305. 
Henriot,  arrest  of,  383. 
Henry  (of  Bourbon),  death  of,  27. 
Henry  III.,  the  last  of  the  Valois,  death  of. 

27. 
Henry  IV.  ascends  the  throne,  27;   character 

of  his  reign,  27 ;  death  of,  27. 
Holland,  the  Allies  driven  from,  394. 
Hugh  Capet  seizes  the  French  throne,  24. 
Hungary,  war  declared  against,  by  France,  249. 

Imprisonment,  horrors  of,  in  the  Bastille,  54. 

Infidel  writers  during  reign  of  Louis  XV.,  42. 

Infidelity  becomes  the  fashion,  and  why,  48. 

Insult  to  the  deputies  of  the  people,  86. 

Insurrection,  cause  of  failure  of  the,  46 ;  reason 
for,  46 ;  planned  against  the  National  Con- 
vention, 400. 

Intellect,  if  of  the  lower  class,  thought  lightly  of. 
45. 

Invasion,  the  fear  of,  arms  France,  142. 

Ireland,  hatred  of  the  peoidc  of,  against  En- 
gland, 418;  expedition  to,  419. 

Iron  chest,  building  of  the,  252. 

Isnard  (Monsieur),  speech  of,  on  the  Austrian 
war,  249. 

Italian  campaign,  the  victories  of  the,  421. 

Italy,  the  campaign  in,  415. 

Jacobin  Club,  demand  of,  for  the  deposition  of 


INDEX. 


435 


the  king,  227 ;  present  their  mandate  to  the 
Assembly,  228  ;  their  resolve  to  dethrone  the 
king,  277;  become  the  dominant  power  in 
France,  295  ;   club-house  of  the,  closed,  394. 

Jacobins,  origin  of  the,  75 ;  arrive  at  the  sum- 
mit of  their  power,  214  ;  the  influence  of  the, 
225. 

Jacquerie,  insurrection  of  the,  26. 

Jefferson  (Thomas),  opinion  of,  on  the  condition 
of  the  French,  52 ;  letter  of,  to  Mr.  Jay,  on 
the  States  -  General,  81;  probably  aided  in 
composition  of  Bill  of  Rights,  107;  assists  in 
preparing  the  Declaration  of  Rights,  147  ;  re- 
marks of,  upon  the  questions  of  the  day,  154; 
opinion  of,  concerning  Louis  XVI.,  329. 

Jemappes,  battle  of,  310. 

Jeunesse  Doree,  rise  of  the  band  of,  390. 

Joseph  II.  of  Austria,  reply  of,  upon  the  sub- 
ject of  the  American  War  of  Independence, 
61. 

Josephine  Beauharnais  imprisoned  in  Paris, 
378. 

Judges  bought  their  oflSces  and  sold  their  deci- 
sions, 49. 

King.     See  Louis  XVI. 

Kleber,  victories  of,  on  the  Upper  Ehine,  395. 

Laclos,  editor  of  the  Jacobin  Journal,  225. 

La  Fayette  (Marquis  de),  advocates  the  Amer- 
ican War  of  Independence,  61 ;  his  boldness 
at  the  Assembly  of  Notables,  67;  joins  the 
National  Assembly,  101 ;  vice-president  of 
National  Assembly,  106;  presents  the  As- 
sembly with  the  Bill  of  Rights,  107;  made 
commander  of  the  National  Guard,  126;  in- 
forms the  Parisians  of  the  king's  speech,  126 ; 
attempt  of,  to  save  Foulon,  136;  makes  the 
Declaration  of  Rights,  147 ;  danger  of,  150  ; 
popularity  of,  declines,  1 55 ;  his  knowledge 
of  the  royalist  plots,  156 ;  saves  the  palace 
from  destruction,  161 ;  presents  and  recon- 
ciles the  queen  to  the  people,  163;  ensures 
the  safety  of  the  queen's  guard,  163 ;  confi- 
dence of,  in  the  people,  183;  takes  the  oath 
of  fidelity,  183 ;  accused  by  the  people  of 
treason,  210;  issues  an  order  for  arrest  of  the 
king,  210;  assumption  of  power  by,  210; 
boldness  of,  in  rescuing  d'Aumont,  211  ;  in- 
terview of,  with  Desmoulins,  213;  insult  to, 
by  the  queen,  220 ;  unpopularity  of,  226 ;  dis- 
persion of  the  Jacobin  mob  by,  228 ;  aversion 
of  the  queen  toward,  240 ;  resigns  the  com- 
mand of  the  National  Guard,  243 ;  his  speech 
to  the  Assembly  on  the  outrages  of  20th  of 
June,  263 ;  burned  in  effigy,  264 ;  his  plan 
for  saving  the  king,  271 ;  calumniated  by  or- 
ders of  the  queen,  273 ;  denounced  as  a  trai- 
tor, 280 ;  arrested  and  imprisoned  at  Olmutz, 
297. 

La  Force,  prison  of,  broken  open,  115. 


La  Pe'rouse,  instructions  for  his  voyage  framed, 
58. 

La  Vendee,  rise  of  the  Royalists  in,  332 ;  insur- 
rection at,  crushed,  342 ;  horrible  executions 
in,  343. 

Lamballe  (Princess),  trial  and  execution  of,  303. 

Lamotte,  Comtesse,  72. 

Land,  proportion  owned  by  the  tax-payers,  50 ; 
difficulty  of  purchasing,  52. 

Latude,  his  imprisonment,  56 ;  account  of  his 
captivity,  57. 

Launey  (M.  de),  character  of,  118. 

Lebrun  appointed  minister  of  foreign  affairs, 
290. 

Lefebvre  (Abbe),  distributes  powder  to  the  peo- 
ple, 117. 

Le'gendre,  attempt  of,  to  save  Danton,  367. 

Legislative  Assembly,  formation  of  the,  237 ; 
measures  of  the,  against  the  non-conforming 
priests,  243.     See  also  Assembly. 

Legislature,  how  should  it  be  constituted  ?  148. 

Leopold,  death  of,  246.     See  also  Austria. 

Lepelletier,  assassination  of,  330. 

Letters,  anonj-mous,  to  Louis  XV.,  41 ;  men  of, 
regarded  as  curiosities,  46. 

Lettres  de  cachet,  blank,  filled  up  by  the  king's 
favorites,  53 ;  number  issued  during  the  reign 
of  Louis  XV.,  55;  ease  with  which  they  were 
obtained,  55 ;  abolished  by  the  National  As- 
sembly, 236. 

Liancourt  (Duke  of),  midnight  interview  of, 
with  the  king,  123. 

Libertines  still  infidels,  but  not  openly,  47. 

Literature  and  art,  state  of,  during  reign  of 
Louis  XIV.,  33. 

Loan,  one  hundred  millions  of  dollars  on  peo- 
ple alone,  69. 

Louis  Capet.     See  Lons  XVI. 

Louis  Philippe,  poverty  of,  334 ;  prediction  of 
Danton  to,  507. 

Louis  XIII.,  his  reign,  27. 

Louis  XIV.,  death  of,  33 ;  state  of  society  dur- 
ing his  reign,  25  ;  character  of,  29. 

Louis  XV.,  marriage  of,  38 ;  length  of  the  reign 
of,  38 ;  political  reasons  of,  for  countenancing 
Voltaire,  49 ;  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
lettres  de  cachet  during  the  reign  of,  55 ; 
death  of,  57. 

Louis  XVI.,  absolute  power  of,  53;  character 
of,  58;  commencement  of,  as  king,  58;  ap- 
pointment of  his  ministers,  59 ;  love  of,  for 
blacksmiths'  work,  65  ;  orders  Parliament  to 
register  decree  taxing  all  lands  alike,  68 ; 
banishes  Parliament  to  Troyes,  69 ;  banishes 
the  Duke  d'Orleans,  70;  decrees  an  equal 
representation  in  States-General,  79 ;  orders 
Bre'ze'  not  to  molest  the  National  Assembly, 
100;  character  of,  by  M.  Bailly,  HI;  mid- 
night interview  of  Duke  of  Liancourt  with, 
123 ;  visits  and  explains  himself  to  the  As- 
sembly, 124;   conducted  in  triumph  to  the 


436 


INDEX. 


palace,  125;   his  loss  of  power,  127;  i 
Necker,  128;  visits  the  Parisians,  12E 


127;  recalls 
129;  ac- 
cepts the  acts  of  the  people,  130;  accepts  the 
tricolored  cockade,  130 ;  reception  of,  by  the 
French  people,  131 ;  gives  money  to  the  poor, 
133;  decides  to  obey  the  people,  1G2;  walks 
alone  among  the  people,  166;  rumors  of  at- 
tempts to  carry  off,  175;  visit  of,  to  the  As- 
semblv,  175 ;  speech  of,  at  the  Assembly,  176 ; 
takes  the  oath  to  the  people,  18-1;  effect  of 
the  death  of  Mirabeau  upon,  195 ;  intentions 
of,  relating  to  flight,  196 ;  surrounded  by  the 
National  Guards,  197;  flight  of,  198  ;  discov- 
ered by  Drouet,  200 ;  arrested  at  Varennes, 
201 ;  appearance  of,  after  arrest,  204 ;  influ- 
ence of  the  appearance  of,  207 ;  carried  back 
to  Paris,  208;  prophetical  exclamation  of, 
208 ;  injudicious  memorial  of,  212  ;  return  of, 
to  Paris  from  Varennes,  215;  entrance  of, 
into  Paris,  218;  offers  a  declaration  of  the 
object  of  his  leaving  Paris,  221 ;  presentation 
of  the  Constitution  to,  231 ;  cordial  assent  of, 
to  the  Constitution,  232;  takes  the  oath  to 
support  the  Constitution,  232 ;  reception  of, 
by  the  Assembly,  234 ;  experience  of,  in  the 
variableness  of  the  mob,  234  ;  remarks  of,  to 
Bertrand  de  Moleville,  236;  the  Assembly 
addressed  by,  238;  proclamation  of,  to  the 
emigrants  at  Coblcntz,  242 ;  letter  of,  to  Louis 
Stanislas  Xavier,  242 ;  his  protection  of  the 
non-conforming  priests,  243 ;  speech  of,  to  the 
Assembly,  244  ;  declares  war  against  Austria, 
246 ;  speech  of,  to  the  Assembly  on  the  de- 
mands of  Austria,  249;  deplorable  dejection 
of,  254  ;  character  of,  described  by  the  queen, 
267;  plans  for  the  escape  of,  271;  his  silk 
breast-plate,  275 ;  petitions  for  his  dethrone- 
ment, 280  ;  insulted  in  the  garden,  283 ;  takes 
refuge  with  the  National  Asseml)ly,  285  ;  sus- 
pended by  the  National  Assembly,  289;  a 
l)risoner,  292 ;  taken  to  the  Temple,  294  ;  in- 
sults of,  at  the  Temple,  31 1 ;  summoned  to  ap- 
pear before  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal,  315 ; 
trial  of,  316;  anecdote  concerning,  317;  in- 
formed of  his  condemnation,  324  ;  his  last  in- 
terview with  his  family,  325 ;  his  bequests, 
326 ;  his  execution,  329. 

Louis  XVII.     See  Daitpiiin. 

Louis  XVIII.  (Count  of  Provence),  reply  of,  to 
the  letter  of  the  king  to,  242. 

Lourtalot  (Monsieur),  incites  to  the  rescue  of 
the  soldiers,  104. 

Lyons  cai)tured  by  the  Revolutionists,  342 ;  ris- 
ing of  the  Royalists  at,  398. 

Maillnrd,  his  judicinj  labors  at  the  prison  of  Ab- 

biiye,  303. 
Mailly  (Madame  de),  favorite  of  Louis  XV.,  38. 
Malcshorbes,  execution  of,  360. 
Marnt  (Jcnn  I'nul),  his  advice  to  the  peoitlo, 

105;  opinion  of,  concerning  National  Assem- 


bly, 146 ;  desires  to  abrogate  the  death  pen- 
alty, 173;  speech  of,  to  the  Jacobin  Club, 
214;  trial  and  victory  of,  335  ;  assassination 
of,  338 ;  bust  of,  thrown  into  the  mud,  398. 

Marceau,  death  of,  414. 

Maria,  wife  of  Louis  XV.,  38. 

Maria  Theresa  a  prisoner,  292;  taken  to  the 
Temple,  294 ;  liberation  of,  351 ;  marriage 
and  death  of,  352. 

Marie  Antoinette,  education  of,  58;  her  posi- 
tion, 71 ;  at  Trianon,  her  troubles,  72 ;  ac- 
cused of  adultery  with  the  Count  d'Artois, 
72 ;  involved  with  Comtesse  Lamotte  in  the 
public  estimation,  72  ;  intrusts  her  son  to  the 
nobility,  100;  effect  of  seeing  the  tricolor 
worn  by  the  king,  132;  takes  the  oath  of 
fidelity,  185 ;  plans  the  escape  of  the  king, 
197;  flight  of,  198,  199;  arrested  at  Va- 
rennes, 201 ;  indignation  of,  at  the  disrespect 
shown  to  the  king,  203 ;  pleads  with  the  may- 
or's wife,  206 ;  insult  of,  to  La  Fayette,  220 ; 
respect  of,  for  popular  rights,  234 ;  anguish 
of,  at  the  disrespect  sho^vn  the  king,  238 ;  her 
hatred  of  La  Fayette,  240 ;  attempt  to  assas- 
sinate, 266 ;  her  opinion  of  the  king's  char- 
acter, 267  ;  adventures  of,  in  the  mob  of  20th 
of  June,  287 ;  the  dauphin  ordered  to  be  taken 
from,  346;  taken  to  the  Conciergerie,  347; 
trial  of,  348 ;  condemnation  and  letter  of,  to 
her  sister,  349 ;  execution  of,  350. 

Marly,  palace  of,  35. 

Massat,  imprisonment  of,  in  the  Bastille,  56. 

Masses,  wretchedness  of  the,  47 ;  their  condi- 
tion during  the  reign  of  Louis  XV.,  52. 

Memorial  of  the  king  on  leaving  Paris,  212. 

Mercenaries,  foreign,  collected  in  Paris,  104. 

Merovingian  dynasty,  the,  18. 

Mirabeau,  his  course  to  identify  himself  with 
the  people,  80 ;  character  of,  80 ;  his  expul- 
sion from  the  Parliament,  80;  his  aspect  at 
the  States-General,  86;  his  formal  "Letters 
to  my  Constituents,"  87;  speech  of,  upon  the 
dissolution,  99 ;  compares  American  and  En- 
glish revolutions  with  that  of  France,  102 ; 
speech  of,  concerning  the  movements  of  the 
army,  106 ;  his  position  in  the  Assembly,  107 ; 
instruction  to,  of  the  dcjujty  to  the  king,  124 ; 
opposes  the  amnesty,  1 39 ;  how  regarded  by 
the  Parisians,  149 ;  his  motives  explained, 
152  ;  supports  the  confiscation  of  church  prop- 
erty, 171 ;  defends  the  Convention  from  the 
charge  of  usurpation,  174;  physical  condition 
of,  189;  interview  of,  with  the  queen,  189; 
plans  of,  to  overturn  the  Constitution,  190; 
ojiposition  of,  to  law  against  emigration,  191 ; 
I)lot  of,  for  the  king's  cscaj)e,  192;  death  of, 
193;  funeral  of,  194. 

Mob  becomes  fa.st  and  furious,  168;  actions  of 
the,  on  the  20th  of  June,  1792,  2.')5. 

Molcvillo  (Bertrand  de),  remarks  of,  on  the  As- 
sembly, 235. 


IKDEX. 


437 


Moliere,  his  reception  at  the  Courtiers'  table, 

45. 
Monarchy  supported  by  the  Papacy,  48. 
Monge  appointed  minister  of  the  marine,  290. 
Monopolists,  hatred  of  the  people  against,  134. 
Montesquieu  explains  the  national  policy  to  the 

people,  47. 
Moors,  incursions  of  the,  into  France,  20. 

Napoleon.     See  Bonapaete.  i 

National  bankruptcy  described,  63. 

National  Guard  formed,  12G;  losing  influence, 
150 ;  dispersion  of  a  mob  by  the,  229. 

Necker,  appointment  of,  as  minister  of  finance, 
60 ;  policy  of,  60 ;  his  position  and  struggles, 
62 ;  his  "  Compte  rendu  an  Roi"  and  its  eftect, 
63 ;  recommends  formation  of  provincial  par- 
liaments, 63 ;  his  measures  and  their  recep- 
tion, 64 ;  recalled,  77 ;  eflPccts  upon  the  peo- 
ple of  his  recall,  77 ;  applauded  by  the  people 
for  refusing  to  attend  the  royal  sitting,  100; 
remarks  of,  on  the  conspiracy  of  the  nobles 
against  the  National  Assembly,  102 ;  his  ad- 
vice disregarded,  107 ;  dismissal  of,  108 ;  re- 
called, 128 ;  return  of,  to  Paris,  138 ;  resig- 
nation of,  189. 

Nemours  (Duke  of),  his  accusation  and  punish- 
ment, 54. 

Noailles  (Viscount  de),  services  of,  139 ;  arm  of 
the,  rejected  by  the  queen,  220. 

Nobility,  their  doctrine  regarding  the  lower 
class,  45 ;  hereditaiy,  state  of  society  which 
abolishes,  46 ;  much  dissatisfied  with  the  de- 
cree of  equality  of  representation,  79;  tri- 
umph of  the,  96,  97 ;  ordered  by  the  king  to 
join  the  National  Assembly,  101 ;  dissatisfac- 
tion of  the,  with  the  Assembly,  101 ;  conspir- 
acy of  the,  to  overturn  Assembly,  102 ;  yield 
their  feudal  rights,  140;  plots  of  the,  156;  re- 
ligion of  the,  170 ;  plans  of  the,  191.  See 
also  Nobles. 

Nobles  obliged  to  unite  with  the  king,  and  to 
promise  to  submit  to  all  the  taxes,  90 ;  aban- 
donment of  their  chateaux  for  a  metropolitan 
residence,  45 ;  income  of,  in  province  of  Li- 
mousin, according  to  Turgot,  45 ;  position  of 
the,  in  the  days  of  feudal  grandeur,  40 ;  now 
hated  by  the  peasants.  46 ;  all  taxation  stead- 
ily opposed  by  the,  65-68 ;  every  where  resist 
the  decree  of  Brienne,  75 ;  their  plan  for  man- 
aging the  States-General,  84 ;  exult  in  their 
supposed  victory,  100;  forty-seven  join  the 
National  Assembly,  101;  obstruct  the  action 
of  the  Assembly,  105  ;  plan  of,  to  regain  then- 
ascendency,  141. 

Normandy,  revolt  in,  24. 

Notables  (Assembly  of),  recommended  by  Ca- 
lonne,  66 ;  the  meeting,  67  ;  meeting  of,  call- 
ed to  settle  questions  about  the  States-Gen- 
eral, 78. 


Oath  of  fidelity  taken,  184. 

Orleans  (Duke  of),  enters  his  protest  in  Parlia- 
ment against  the  king's  commands,  70 ;  ban- 
ished by  the  king,  70 ;  contemplates  usurpa- 
tion, 71 ;  joins  the  National  Assembly,  101. 

Orleans,  massacre  of  the  Koyalists  of,  308. 

Oubliettes,  description  of,  55. 

Paine  (Thomas),  one  of  the  Jacobins,  224. 

Papacy  the  right  arm  of  monarchy,  48. 

Pare  aux  Cerfs,  institution  of,  40. 

Paris,  from  what  it  sprung,  19 ;  state  of,  on  July 
12,  1789,  111 ;  garrisoned  by  the  people,  124 ; 
municipal  government  of,  arrogates  supreme 
power,  145 ;  events  at,  on  the  king's  escape, 
209 ;  a  new  mayor  of,  chosen,  243 ;  mob  in, 
on  the  9th  of  August,  1792,  281 ;  arrest  of 
the  Royahsts  of,  300 ;  festival  in,  to  celebrate 
the  Jacobin  Constitution,  339 ;  famine  in,  398. 

Parliament  asserts  that  it  has  no  power  to  reg- 
ister decrees,  68 ;  custom  of,  to  register  king's 
decrees,  68 ;  passes  resolution  concerning 
States-General,  69  ;  its  desire  to  obtain  feudal 
privileges,  73  ;  forced  to  surrender  D'Espreme- 
nil  and  De  Monsabert,  74;  meets  and  declares 
its  session  permanent,  74 ;  method  of  the,  in 
receiving  the  king's  commissioners,  76;  its 
condemnation  of  La  Fayette,  298 ;  of  the 
provinces  abolished,  172. 

Parties,  number  of,  in  France,  190. 

Patronage  of  men  of  letters  by  nobility,  nature 
of,  46. 

Paupers,  numbers  of,  169. 

Peasants,  their  hatred  of  the  nobility  and  crowd, 
46;  call  them  "vultures,"  46;  their  fear  of 
tax-collectors,  50 ;  their  difficulties,  52. 

"i^ensees  JPhilosojjhiques^'  burned  by  execution, 
48. 

People  side  with  the  Parliament,  71;  support 
their  enemies,  the  Parliaments,  73 ;  enjoined 
to  send  in  account  of  grievances  to  the  States- 
General,  79 ;  condition  of  the,  83 ;  send  in  re- 
quests to  the  Assembly,  105 ;  bear  the  busts 
of  Necker  and  Orleans  in  triumph,  109;  sack 
the  convents  for  wine  and  wheat,  115;  arm 
and  garrison  the  Bastille,  123 ;  escort  the 
king  to  the  palace,  125;  of  Paris  desire  the 
king  to  visit  them,  129;  becoming  soldiers 
from  fear  of  invasion,  142 ;  demand  of  the, 
that  the  king  shall  go  to  Paris,  162;  influ- 
ence of  the  king's  appearance  upon  the,  207; 
enthusiasm  of  the,  at  the  reading  of  the  Con- 
stitution, 234. 

Pepin  ascends  the  throne,  20. 

Persecution  of  Protestants  renewed,  37;  the  ar- 
gument of  the  Church,  48. 

Pe'tion  chosen  Mayor  of  Paris,  244 ;  dilatory  con- 
duct of,  in  the  mob  of  20th  of  June,  259 ;  his 
dismissal  from  the  Tuileries,  262;  petitions 
the  Assembly  for  the  dethronement  of  the 
king,  280 ;  found  dead  in  the  forest,  362. 


438 


INDEX. 


Pharamond,  chief  of  the  Franks,  18;  obtains 
supremacy  over  Gaul,  18. 

Philip  (the  Fair)  establishes  his  Parliament  in 
Paris,  24. 

Philip  VI.  crowned  at  Rheims,  25 ;  luxury  of 
the  court  of,  25. 

Philosophy,  of  the  writers  on,  47;  of  Revolu- 
tionary writers,  results  of,  47. 

Pichegni  appointed  commander  of  the  Parisian 
forces,  401. 

Piet}-,  its  rarity  forms  an  admirable  foil  to  show 
up  the  corruption  surrounding,  48. 

Pitt  (AV'illiam),  his  approval  of  Burke's  book, 
187 ;  statement  of,  to  the  French  envoy,  240 ; 
his  opinion  of  La  Fayette,  298. 

Political  economy  simplified  for  the  masses,  47. 

Politics  superior  in  influence  to  religion  over 
Louis  XV.,  49. 

Pompadour  (Madame  de),  character  of,  39 ; 
death  of,  43. 

Popular  sovereignty,  when  legitimated  in 
France,  G2. 

Poverty  of  nobles  in  ever}'  thing  but  pride,  45. 

Power  of  France  in  the  hands  of  nobility,  64  ; 
aid  of  foreign,  to  the  noblesse,  196. 

Priests,  attempts  of,  to  rouse  the  populace,  1 77. 

Prisons,  for  what  purposes  used  by  Jesuits,  55  ; 
number  of,  in  Paris,  55 ;  terrible  suffering  in 
the,  359. 

Privileged  class,  number  of,  in  France  during 
the  reign  of  Louis  XV.,  45  ;  dissatisfied  with 
Turgot's  measures,  60 ;  calculation  of  numer- 
ical strength  of,  64. 

Privileges  (feudal).     See  Feudal. 

Protestants,  persecution  of,  by  Louis  XIV.,  29 ; 
number  of,  in  France,  30;  "dragooned  into 
Catholic  faith,"  30 ;  escape  of,  from  France, 
32;  persecution  of,  renewed,  37. 

Province  of  Vendee,  religious  troubles  in,  243. 
See  La  Vendee. 

Provinces,  France  divided  into,  171. 

Provincial  Parliaments,  formation  of,  recom- 
mended by  Necker,  63.  See  also  Parlia- 
ment. 

Prussia,  desire  of,  to  withdraw  from  the  coali- 
tion, 396. 

Public  credit,  condition  of,  iu  France  now,  65. 

Uastadt,  assassination  of  the  embassadors  at, 
428. 

Ilebellion,  people  incited  to,  by  Camille  Des- 
moulins,  108. 

"Reflections,"  by  Edmund  Burke,  187. 

Reform,  few  of  the  nobility  in  fiivor  of,  79. 

Reign  of  Terror,  France  surrendered  to  the, 
345 ;  more  endurable  tlian  the  old  dominion, 
402. 

Religion,  how  represented  by  Revolutionar}' 
writers,  47;  becomes  the  ])o]icy  of  the  nol)lcs, 
170;  the  aid  of,  brought  to  bear,  by  the  cler- 
gy. 173.     See  also  Ciikistianitv. 


Renville  (Constant  de),  confinement  of,  in  the 
Bastille,  53. 

Republicans,  increase  of  the,  246. 

Revolution,  its  outbreak  and  failure  exjilained. 
46;  list  of  the  victims  of  the,  379. 

Revolutionary  Tribunal,  origin  of  the,  296 ;  trial 
of  the  king  t>efore  the,  322. 

Richelieu  (Cardinal),  his  character  and  influ- 
ence as  a  politician,  27;  his  death,  27;  cru- 
elty of,  to  Dessault,  55 ;  iron-hearted  firm- 
ness of,  56. 

Riot,  description  of  the  first,  82 ;  fomented  to 
prevent  meeting  of  the  States  -  General, 
82. 

Robespierre  (Maximilian),  first  appearance  of, 
88  ;  desires  to  abolish  the  death  penalty,  173; 
dimiandsjin jact t>f  ar rnaation  against  the  Gi-^ 
rondistSj  336 ;  turns  against  DantonanglDes- 
moulins,  365  ;  speeclT'  of,  against  Danto?, 
367;  inexplicable  character  of,  375;  decrees 
of,  in  favor  of  the  existence  of  the  Supreme 
Being,  375  ;  supposed  attempt  to  assassinate, 
396;  dawning  opposition  to,  377;  urged  to 
assume  the  dictatorship,  378  ;  defeat  of,  in 
the  Convention,  380 ;  arrest  of,  with  his  broth- 
er, 383 ;  assanation  and  rearrest  of,  386 ;  con- 
demnation of,  387  ;  execution  of,  388. 

Roederer  (Monsieur),  interview  of,  with  the  roy- 
al family,  284. 

Rohan  (Cardinal),  involved  with  Comtesse  La- 
motte,  72. 

Roland  (Monsieur),  dismissal  of,  from  the  of- 
fice of  minister  of  the  interior,  254  ;  death  of, 
363. 

Roland  (Madame),  her  letter  to  the  king,  254 ; 
anecdote  concerning,  309 ;   death  of,  363. 

Rollo,  an  incident  related  of,  23. 

Roman  empire,  decline  of  the,  17. 

Romeuf  (M.  de),  arrest  of  the  king  by,  208. 

Rousseau  employs  his  eloquence  for  Revolution. 
47. 

Royal  decree,  customs  regarding  it,  68. 

Royal  family,  flight  of  the,  198;  their  mode  of 
life  in  the  Temple,  311.  See  also  Loi'is 
XVI.  and  Marie  Antoinette. 

Sabbath,  attempts  to  obliterate  the,  361. 

Salt,  duty  on,  abolished,  1 72. 

Santcrre  ajipointed  to  the  command  of  the  Na- 
tional Guard,  296. 

Sausse  (Madame),  answer  of,  to  the  ap])lica- 
tions  of  the  queen,  206. 

Schools  established  by  Charlemagne,  21. 

Sermon  of  the  Bishop  of  Nancy,  86 ;  of  Abbe 
Fauchet,  144. 

Sheriff'  obliged  to  have  a  guard,  50. 

Sieycs  (Abbe),  his  pam)>hlct,  78 ;  his  motion  in 
the  States-General,  89 ;  its  success,  90 ;  sec- 
ond ]>flmphlet  of,  90. 

Societies,  (he  jealousy  with  which  they  were  re- 
garded, 46. 


INDEX. 


431» 


Society,  state  of,  during  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV., 
28 ;  state  of,  at  the  death  of  Louis  XIV.,  33. 

Soldiers,  brutal  conduct  of,  30 ;  become  discon- 
tented, 103;  coalesce  with  the  people,  103; 
arrested  for  their  oath,  101 ;  scatter  the  first 
mob,  109;  a  loyal  regiment  from  Flanders 
ordered  to  Paris,  167. 

Sombrueil,  governor  of  Hotel  des  Invalides, 
character  of,  119. 

Spain,  treaty  of  France  with,  39G. 

Speech  of  Marat  to  the  Jacobin  Club,  215. 

St.  Etienne,  curate  of,  heads  the  people,  119. 

St.  Huruge,  account  of  him,  150. 

States-General  convened  for  May,  7G ;  debates 
which  arose  upon  the  summoning  of,  78 ;  rep- 
resentation in,  how  to  be  determined,  79  ; 
equal  representation  in,  decreed  by  the  king, 
79 ;  the  people  enjoined  to  send  in  account 
of  their  grievances  to  the,  79 ;  number  of 
members  of,  81 ;  convened,  83 ;  delegates  to, 
received  by  the  king,  83 ;  opening  of  the,  85, 
86  ;  boldness  of  the  third  estate,  87;  Necker's 
reception  at  the,  87 ;  attempt  of,  to  ensnare 
the  third  estate,  87;  the  conflict  in  the,  88. 
See  also  Assembly  and  Convention. 

Supreme  Being,  decrees  in  favor  of  the,  375 ; 
festival  in  honor  of  the,  37G. 

Suspected  persons,  schedule  of  those  liable  to 
arrest,  344. 

Suspensive  veto,  the,  approved,  151. 

Swiss,  the,  refuse  to  fire  upon  their  comrades, 
110. 

Talleyrand,  his  remark  concerning  the  diamond 
necklace,  72, 

Tallien,  speech  of,  against  Robespierre,  381. 

Talma,  incident  connected  with  the  marriage 
of,  178. 

Taxation  so  universal  that  the  inventor  of  a 
new  one  was  regarded  as  a  man  of  genius, 
49;  the  burden  of,  fell  upon  unprivileged 
classes  solely,  49 ;  artifices  used  by  the  peas- 
ants to  elude,  50 ;  proportion  of  land  owned 
by  the  payers  of,  50 ;  expedients  of  the  col- 
lector of,  to  obtain  the,  50 ;  burden  of,  com- 
puted, 61 ;  equality  of,  when  nobles  would 
permit  it,  98. 

Temple,  description  of  the,  293. 

Tennis  -  court,  celebration  of  the  meeting  at, 
255. 

Texel,  capture  of  the  fleet  at,  395. 

Theatre,  Jacobin  riot  in  the,  239. 

Thermidorians,  origin  of  the,  379 ;  supremacy 
of  the,  389. 

Thiers,  remarks  of,  on  the  National  Conven- 
tion, 410. 

Third  estate  triumphant,  101. 

Thouret  (Monsieur),  presents  Constitution  to  the 
king,  231. 


Thuriot  (Monsieur),  summons  Bastille  to  sur- 
render, 120. 

Title-deeds  destroyed  by  the  peasantry,  143. 

Titles  of  noble  blood  sold,  50. 

Tollendal,  Lally,  speech  of,  126. 

Toulon  surrendered  to  the  Allies,  341. 

Tree  of  feudalism,  burning  of  the,  276. 

Trials  ordered  to  be  public,  172. 

Tribune,  a  military,  advised  by  Marat,  215. 

Tricolor  worn  by  the  king,  132. 

Tuileries  besieged,  286. 

Turgot  (Monsieur),  his  appointment  and  career 
as  minister  of  finance,  59,  60 ;  his  measures, 
how  accepted,  60. 

Unbelief  among  the  courtiers,  reasons  for,  49. 
United  States,  Revolution  of,  compared  witli 
that  of  France,  46. 

Valmy,  battle  of,  306. 

Valois,  history  of  the  house  of,  26. 

Varennes  (the),  king  and  royal  family  arrived 
at,  201 ;  municipality  of,  request  the  king  to 
wait,  205. 

Vaublanc  (M.  de),  speech  of,  to  the  king. 
244. 

Vergniaud  (Monsieur),  charges  of,  against  the 
king,  269  ;  prophetic  solicitude  of,  309  ;  sen- 
tences the  king  to  death,  323 ;  spirit  of  the 
Girondists  avowed  by,  332 ;  remark  of,  in  the 
prison  to  the  son  of  M.  Alluaud,  354. 

Versailles,  chateau  of,  commenced  by  Riche- 
lieu, 27 ;  palace  of,  35. 

Veto,  struggle  on  the  part  of  the  nobility  to 
make  it  absolute,  149. 

Vice  protected  by  the  Church,  48. 

Victims,  list  of  the,  of  the  Revolution,  379. 

Vienne,  Archbishop  of,  president  of  National 
Assembly,  106. 

Vincennes,  brilliant  festi\dties  and  spectacles  at. 
25. 

Voltaire  applies  his  force  to  assailing  the  cor- 
ruption of  the  Church,  47 ;  unfairness  of  his 
criticisms  on  Christianity,  47 ;  befriended  by 
Frederick  II.  of  Prussia,  49 ;  revisits  Paris, 
62 ;  his  reception,  62 ;  his  death,  62 ;  removed 
to  the  Pantheon  in  Paris,  222. 

Voting  for  the  deputies  in  Paris,  79. 

Wars,  why  waged  by  princes,  51. 

Women  of  Paris,  their  march  to  Versailles,  159  ; 
deputation  of,  to  the  king,  160. 

Writers,  revolutionary,  views  of,  on  religion, 
47 ;  their  influence  in  brutalizing  the  people, 
47;  the  leading,  were  infidels,  47. 

Xavier  (Louis  Stanislas),  letter  of  the  king  to, 
242. 


THE   END. 


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